


Going Over Home

by lifeofsnark



Series: Going Over Home 'Verse [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: American Civil War AU, An acceptance of Sansa's sexuality in the 1860s, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, But not like traumatic PTSD, Content warning: non-graphic pregnancy, Dirty Talk, F/F, F/M, Fingering, GONE WITH THE SANSAN, Girl on Girl sex, Happy Ending, I will update them as I think of other things, It does not glorify the south, It is filthy, It's about Sansa and Sandor trying to kill Cersei and making their way through a war to do it, Multi, Oral Sex, Plot tags now:, Pregnancy of POV character, Sansa has PTSD, Seriously everything is consensual, THIS FIC IS FILTHY BUT IN A CLASSY WAY, Tags Are Hard, This is not a political fic, This work is finished and I am posting one chapter at a time, Voyeurism, battlefield sex, but in a good way, for everyone, in a timeline that is totally and completely historically inaccurate, literally everyone is Union but the Lannisters, normal p in v, okay, one of the sex scenes is more than 4k words long, sex in hot springs, smut tags first, there are nine on screen sex scenes in this, this is a slow burn but I PROMISE it is worth your while, two couples watching each other do it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-03 15:09:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 61,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12750786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/pseuds/lifeofsnark
Summary: During the Second Battle of Bull Run Sandor takes a moment to look around him, and he sees death and destruction and fire. He walks away from the Lannisters and the war, working his way back to the Dakota Territories and the Stark homestead. When he arrives he finds Sansa Stark standing in front of the burning rubble of Winterfell. She burned down her childhood home with Ramsay and his men inside of it. Eventually the pair of them decide that the only way they can truly live their lives is if Cersei is dead. They ride south on a mission to kill the Lannister matriarch, and on the way have all KINDS of fun sexcapades. The Civil War serves as a backdrop to their relationship- this is NOT a political story or a southern-sympathy story. Let me tell you: this is porn.Everyone gets a happy ending, and Winterfell certainly does get re-built.Leobrat is the reason that this exists. I couldn't have done it without her cheering me on, and I am thankful for her every single day.*Completed*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leobrat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leobrat/gifts).



> The title "Going Over Home" comes from the song, "Poor Wayfaring Stranger". Even if you don't like the sound of folk music, I suggest you give the lyrics a google. They're haunting and rather perfect for the Stark family.

Sandor smelled smoke long before he got close enough to see the flames. 

 

He rode Reaper over the next rise, the one that would take him down to the Stark homestead. He’d been on their land for miles now; they ran cattle over a huge portion of Montana. 

 

Man and horse paused and watched the fire rage. It had consumed the big house, the one where Ned Stark’s family had lived for generations. He wasn’t sure who resided there now; the family had been scattered to the winds by the war and the Lannisters. Sandor was done with that. He’d been there at Bull Run- both fucking times. Grass hadn’t even had time to grow over the scorched and bloodied dirt before the fighting had come there again. He’d fought his way into a clearing at some point; one littered with bodies but blessedly free of living soldiers. Cannons boomed around him; the acrid smell of black powder and burning grass filled the air. Soldiers and horses screamed alike; mutual cries of pain and fear ripped from every living throat. 

 

Sandor wondered if the Lannisters had seen battle like this. He knew Tywin was a veteran of skirmishes along the Mexican border and a proud graduate of West Point. This, though, this was the fault of the Imp. He’d never seen battle; he couldn’t have known he was sending his men into the jaws of a meat grinder. Sandor’s scars ached with the ghost of remembered pain as he smelled hair burning. 

 

Sandor had been prepared to die for the Lannisters for years. He had been ready to take a bullet in exchange for a place to belong, he had been ready to be beaten by fists if it would give him a chance to vent some of the rage that stirred in his belly when he opened his eyes in the morning and curled up to wait when he took his last drink at night. 

 

Now, though-no. Sandor Clegane wasn’t willing to see any more men die for a cause that had been doomed from the start; he wasn’t willing to burn for a family that thought no further than their own interests. 

 

He’d left that night. He’d turned Reaper and had ridden west through the burned and plundered hills of Virginia. He’d ridden past empty barns and coops and fields all through the rolling Appalachians. The women and children in the mountains had watched him go by; their eyes cold and judging as he rode further and further from their husbands and fathers and brothers. 

 

There was food west of the mountains. The fighting hadn’t scarred this land as badly as it had the eastern coast of the young country. 

 

Sandor had spent a fortnight with a priest and his congregation in Illinois. Winter was falling over the northern portion of the country by then, and he’d helped to carry logs and hew wood beams to repair the roof of the little whitewashed church. It had been almost peaceful, and Sandor likely could have been content to stay, but the little town was already short of food and recent reports of the war told of battles moving closer and closer. The first flurries of the year swirled to the ground the day that Sandor saddled Reaper. 

 

He followed the Missouri further and further north. He traded a pile of rabbit furs for a heavy woolen coat in Iowa and traded fox pelts and two weeks of work to a shopkeeper in the Dakota territories for heavier boots. He wasn’t in a hurry; he was almost content to spend the winter trapping and hunting on his own out here in the wilderness that still looked as though he was the first man to walk it. In the back of his mind, though, he was working his way towards the Winterfell Ranch. He’d been there once before, before the war. Robert Baratheon and his household had come to visit and to beg Ned to assist in peacekeeping measures. 

 

Robert and Ned had attended school together and had spent their summers with Jon Arryn in his Massachusetts home. They’d been best friends, as close as brothers, and had stayed in contact even after Robert had married into the Lannister dynasty and Ned had moved back to his ancestral home. 

 

The unrest and threats and political turmoil cropping up over the east coast of the country was powerful enough to cause Robert to drag his entire family thousands of miles to visit his old friend. Robert begged Ned to come to Georgia, to attend the debates and talks. Ned was known by all to be solid and honorable and Robert was desperate enough to beg in person. 

 

In the end Ned had gone south for the sake of his old friend and his country. He’d taken his daughters with him; Cersei had encouraged it. She said they could attend a finishing school with Myrcella, that it would help them to make friends and make advantageous marriages. 

 

In the end, though, Ned Stark went south to die. The girls ended up lost or sold to Cersei’s political allies and the Stark family was scattered to the wind. Sandor left Winterfell with Ned and Robert and the kids with a sick feeling in his gut. Now he was back on Stark land, and that sick feeling had returned. 

 

He’d wandered for more than a thousand miles and three months, and when he finally arrived it was to find this- another fucking fire. Sparks and ash flew into the night sky, where the stars were obscured by low cloud cover that threatened yet another snow. He nudged Reaper down the hill; he could at least check to see if anyone had made it out alive. 

 

Once he was closer he  _ could  _ make out a figure moving, a darker shape against the brilliant light of flames. It walked to the barn, slid open the great door with a clang, and moved inside the structure. Sandor watched and waited for a moment. He wasn’t sure if this person had  _ set  _ the fire or escaped from it. 

 

One horse, a beautiful bay, trotted out of the far side of the barn and into the turnout pen downhill from the house. A chestnut followed, then a dun and a black and a grey. Two huge drafts wandered out,flanked by several more horses of varying shapes and colors. Sandor moved Reaper to that end of the barn, hoping for a glimpse inside. 

 

That seemed to be the last of the horses. He waited a few moments more, listening to the crackle and hiss of the fire. There was a crash as one of the great beams that supported the roof of the ranch house gave way and one last horse shot out of the barn. This one was fully tacked and carried a rider who was bent low over its neck, a bucket in one hand. The horse and rider trotted through the crowd of horses milling uneasily in the small pen. They rode to the gate and the rider handily cued the horse to the gate, lifted the latch, and used the horse’s shoulder to open the gate. The cloaked rider rattled the bucket (which Sandor assumed was filled with grain) and led the horses into the much larger field downhill from the farmhouse. 

 

Sandor continued to bide his time.  He didn’t particularly want to get involved, but he was also curious as to just what had happened to this ranch that had stood for a hundred years. 

 

The rider came back to the gate, dismounted, and took the saddle and bridle off the horse. The saddle was swung onto the top rail of the fence and the horse cantered off to rejoin its compatriots. The rider was shorter than expected now that they were on the ground and striding purposefully towards the blazing house. 

 

It stopped maybe ten feet from what had once been a weathered front porch. They pushed the hood of the cloak back and Sandor saw her in profile- for it was clearly a  _ her _ . She was tall for a woman, her features apparently in the eerily flickering light. Her hair was braided down her back; Sandor couldn’t tell what color it was. 

 

One woman wouldn’t be a threat to him. He rode around the base of the slight hill the house had once stood on. She moved off, heading towards the bunkhouse. He watched her and flanked her movements from the relative safety of the shadows. She emerged from the bunkhouse dragging a straw-stuffed mattress. She tugged it up the hill and got it up onto the porch where the fire quickly took it. 

 

She returned to the bunkhouse and went through the routine again. Another mattress fed the flames of what Sandor was starting to guess was a funeral pyre. She made another trip and threw breeches and shirts and books and soft skin bags into blazing the house. 

 

Sandor dismounted and looped Reaper’s reins around a tree limb that was well away from the fire. He walked up to the woman still backlit by the wavering, brilliant light of the flames.  She turned and looked at him: her eyes locked with his and she stood with her chest still heaving from the effort of hurling her most recent load of goods into the ashes. 

 

Sandor’s lungs clenched. He knew that face, it had haunted his dreams and nightmares for years. 

 

Sansa Stark turned away from him and watched her childhood home burn to ash. With a crack and a leap of flames the porch roof gave way and crashed through the timbers below it. Sandor grabbed Sansa and yanked her back because she seemed half-tempted to crawl into the fire herself. 

 

“What happened?” he asked, his hands on her shoulders. 

 

She glanced at her old protector, a little smile playing on her lips. “They burned.”

 

They stood and watched the house burn until the sky lightened and the house was reduced to smoldering embers and a few pieces of charred beam. He’d thought about taking her away or trying to shake her out of her trance, but he bit his tongue and stood shoulder to shoulder with her and watched the fire dance. He’d been far enough away not to worry about it burning him, but he hated the crackle, the smell, the reminder that if things had gone differently his face and his life would have turned out very differently. 

 

“We need to feed the horses,” she said eventually, breaking the silence that had stretched between them for hours. She moved away, her boots crunching through the ash that had drifted back to earth. In the end the barn hadn’t caught fire. The wind had blown the other direction and the distance separating the two buildings had been just enough. 

 

Sandor followed her into the barn, cataloging the changes in her that were more apparent now in the lavender morning light. She was taller, her jaw more angular without the childish roundness that had clung the last time he’d seen her. Her hair was still a deep, true red; more brilliant than her mother’s ever was. She was thinner, and her eyes shadowed. 

 

Sansa got buckets and filled them with grain from a barrel in the tack room. She dumped the feed into pans placed in the corner of each stall and went back for more. When they were finished the horses were crowded at the gate, familiar with this part of the routine. They trotted into their stalls and allowed the latches to be thrown behind them. Sandor had untacked and cared for Reaper while Sansa saw to the other horses. There wasn’t a spare stall, so he shut the big sliding doors and left Reaper out to walk the aisle. 

 

Sansa had paused at the last stall, looking in at the horse munching its breakfast. Sandor’s patience was up, now, and he snagged her arm and tugged her into the tack room, which was slightly warmer than the barn aisle. 

 

“What happened?” He couldn’t bring himself to ask the real question. 

 

“You know Cersei sold me to the Boltons?” Sansa sat down on a pile of saddle blankets.

 

Sandor shook his head, he hadn’t known. The last time he’d seen Sansa she’d been in the Lannister’s big plantation house and engaged to Cersei’s eldest son. 

 

“She did. Robert died, and the war started, and you left to lead the 3rd Regiment. She sent me to the Boltons, back here. They took me and got Winterfell in exchange for trying to get Dakota to send men and supplies south. They’ve sent the supplies: most of the stored food was sent down the river.”

 

She paused and glanced out the little window of the frigid tack room.

 

“I was married to Ramsay Bolton. A year ago Roose rode south with the remaining hands that had known my parents. He hasn’t come back; Ramsay assumed he died. We knew he was at Antietam.” 

 

She clenched and unclenched her fingers in her lap. “Ramsay… wanted an heir. It would tie him to the ranch, to me, forever. When I didn’t, um-” her eyes slid away “-he offered to give me to his men, to see if I would like any of them better.’

 

‘He invited them to drink with him last night. I knew what he planned, so I poured mother’s laudanum into the whiskey. They passed out, heads on the table, and I just, I couldn’t take it anymore.”

 

She looked up from her knees and met Sandor’s eyes. He’d seen that look before, he’d seen it plenty. The women who followed the army camp- who washed the clothes and cleaned the putrid wounds and took coins for a visit between their thighs- looked like that. Men who had seen death over and over, who already had one foot in hell looked like that. He didn’t like seeing it in deep blue eyes of the woman sitting in front of him. 

 

“I got my cloak and my boots and mother’s locket and I dumped kerosene on the floor and then I threw in a match and I didn’t feel anything, I just stood there until the heat hurt my face. And then I came outside and listened to them scream, and even when the screaming stopped I still stood and watched because it’s the first thing I’ve  _ done;  _ I mean... I watched them shoot father and they killed mother and I kept quiet and I couldn’t anymore.”

 

She started to cry and lowered her head to her arms, weeping silently into her knees. 

 

Sandor didn’t have anything he could say after that. He’d wondered before how she held herself together through Joffrey’s torments and the calculated decimation of her family. She’d apparently made it through farm more than that; he couldn’t blame her for what she’d done. He’d certainly done worse. 

 

She looked up then, her eyes red and watery. “The worst part- oh god, the worst part? I didn’t feel anything about it. I thought I’d feel better, feel free, but I just feel tired.” She leaned back now, her head resting against the wall behind her, her eyes fixed on the plank wood ceiling. 

 

“I’m tired,” she repeated. She rose gracefully to her feet and walked out of the tack room and the barn. Sandor followed slowly, keeping his distance from the woman he understood less than ever. She went into the bunkhouse and didn’t come out. 

 

It was cool inside; the stove was emitting almost no heat. The two top bunks still held their straw ticks; they were likely too high and heavy for Sansa to grab in the heat of her fury. She crawled up the ladder, flashing a glimpse of delicate ankle, and burrowed into the blankets there. 

 

Sandor still didn’t know what to do and it was pissing him off. He’d come here hoping for work, hoping one of the Starks would be here- he hadn’t known that Catelyn had died as well; at least he now assumed she was dead. That woman would have done anything to keep her children safe and well. 

 

The ashes of the house still smoldered. Sandor investigated the springhouse and grain stores. There was a massive woodpile in the barn’s lean-to, and he grabbed an armload to take back to the bunkhouse. Fuck it, if she was going to nap so could he, and at least this way he’d be warm. 

 

He fed the wood into the iron stove in the corner, placed the rest on the floor, and climbed into the bunk opposite Sansa’s. He could hear her breathing evenly from her cocoon of blankets, and he soon drifted off to sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa wakes up.  
> Sandor turns out to be real.  
> They go shopping.

Sansa awoke slowly, luxuriantly. She treasured these moments; this soft and fuzzy time before reality came crashing back down on her. 

 

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Sandor Clegane, former Hound of the Lannister family.  She sat up carefully, holding the blankets tightly around her. She was in the bunkhouse up on one of the top beds, and he sat at the scarred and stained wood table set opposite the woodstove. 

 

“It wasn’t a dream, then.” Her voice was raspier than usual; thick with sleep and nerves. Her hair reeked of smoke, as did her cloak. 

 

“Not a dream, little bird.”

 

Sansa squinted out the small front window, trying to judge the time of day by the watery light seeping in. 

 

“What time is it?” 

 

“Before noon,” Sandor said. He glanced at the woodstove and the percolator that was perched atop it. “I’m making coffee, that could be what woke you.”

 

She hadn’t slept long, then. 

 

“Where was the percolator?” she asked as she crawled down from the bed. She needed to relieve herself, the pressure absolutely painful. 

 

“Under the bunk. I had time to look, you’ve been asleep for a day.” He pressed the plunger on the coffee pot and poured himself a mug. Sansa slipped out the door and hurried to the privy. As a girl she’d insisted on a chamber pot, but now she was willing to brave the frigid little building for a few moments of privacy. 

 

She walked more slowly on the return trip to the bunkhouse. Sandor Clegane was back and had come arguably a day too late. She’d wondered about him for years, had sometimes fantasized about what her life could have been like if she’d gone with him the night the 3rd Regiment left, the night he’d offered to take her out from under the noses of the Lannisters and set her on her way home. 

 

It didn’t matter now, though. She’d saved herself in the end; had saved and damned herself. 

 

He was back- but why? Why was he here, thousands of miles from the fighting and the family he served?

 

The hair at the nape of her neck prickled, and it had nothing to do with the northern wind that swirled sugar-fine snow in the air: what if he’d been sent by the Lannisters; what if they had some new scheme in mind for her? 

 

She detoured back to the barn before re-entering the bunk house. 

 

“Is there another cup, please?” she asked, gesturing to Sandor’s coffee. 

 

He poured a cup, passed it to her. “Used to be you’d turn your nose up to this stuff. You always preferred your chocolate.”

 

Sansa smiled a little and took a sip of the dark, bitter drink. “I still do, but chocolate is a luxury we can’t have anymore. Too expensive now. Besides, I’ve found a cup of coffee can make almost any morning a bit more bearable.” 

 

The conversation lulled. They both sipped their coffee and looked everywhere but each other.

 

“Why are you here, Sandor? Are you here to take me back?” She looked at him now, her eyes steady on his face. He looked at her too- her mask was well in place, the mask she would wear during the beatings Joffrey and his school chums would give her. 

 

“No.” 

 

His face didn’t give anything away. 

 

“I’m sorry, sir, but then why are you here? Why did you even come to Winterfell?” Beneath the table Sansa gripped the hoof knife she’d taken from the barn. It wasn’t much, and she wasn’t even sure she could use it, but never would she allow herself to be easy prey again. She was a Stark, and Starks were of the wolves. 

 

“Don’t fucking sir me, girl.” He’d said this to her before, but there was no heat in it now. “I deserted. I deserted and rode west hoping that out here maybe I could get away from the fighting. Maybe find some decent food.”

 

Sansa picked up the chipped blue percolator and poured the last of the coffee into Sandor’s mug.  He heaved a great sigh and kept talking. 

 

“I came here hoping that maybe your mother would be here, that maybe I could have a job. Your family already knew my...qualifications. But I found this.”

 

Sansa didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if she should believe him, didn’t know if she was allowed to ask questions.

 

The silence was awkward this time, and that wouldn’t do. He was here, a guest on her land, and it was her job as the lady to see to his needs and put him at ease.

 

“She died at Riverrun- my mother, I mean. Old Walder had agreed to send men to Cersei already, and then my mother arrived to petition for help.” Sansa tried not to picture it. Her mother had gone to a men she’d considered almost an uncle, and she’d died on his floor. “He killed her and Robb that night.”

 

“I’m sorry.” His words came out grudgingly; words he hadn’t said to anyone in a long, long time. “Is there anywhere you want to go? You had an aunt, didn’t you?”

 

Sansa waved a hand over the stove to check the heat. “Aunt Lysa is dead too- the announcement came from Uncle Petyr, but, I don’t know. It gave me a bad feeling.”

 

“Death announcements usually do that.” 

 

Sandor- the Hound- had always been taciturn, his expression was hard to read. Sansa didn’t know what he was thinking. 

 

“I want to stay here,” she said. “I want to stay here, on this land, where my family has always been.”

 

“So be it.”

 

Sansa was hungry and knew this large man sharing the table with her likely was as well. “I’m going to the spring house to see what’s inside. Maybe there’s something we can roast for supper tonight.”

 

They left the warmth of the bunkhouse for the piercing cold of the snow.  A storm had blown in while they talked, and snow came down in thick waves. It was sinus-piercing, this cold. Sansa had lived through it for every winter of her life but one, the one she’d spent in Atlanta, and every fall she’d always half-wondered if this was the year she’d adapt to it. The answer was always no; every time she left the warmth of the ranch house it felt like her nostrils froze and her lungs deflated. 

 

The springhouse proved to be mostly empty. In the summer they would store butter and milk in the cool water along the floor (after the last of the ice had been harvested or melted). In the winter they would hang cleaned rabbits and deer and elk and turkeys from the rafters, safe in the knowledge that they would be frozen through in less than a day. Now there was only a side of beef, frozen solid. 

 

The chicken coop was fine, the chickens inside fluttering for the meals they’d missed. Sansa told the birds that she was sorry and that she’d be back soon with some food.

 

They poked through the grain store and barn just to see what they had, what could be used. In the end Sandor said he would go hunting and look to see if any rabbit snares had been left by the Boltons. Sansa fed the chickens and gathered the eggs- at least they wouldn’t go hungry today.

 

They ate fried eggs for dinner and went to bed as the light faded. Sandor said he would hunt in the morning, and when Sansa woke he was gone. She puttered aimlessly around the bunkhouse until he returned. Sansa still couldn’t believe Ramsay was gone or that Sandor wasn’t here to take her to Cersei. She waited by the window, thinking of her childhood hopes, her marriage, and the great scarred man walking by the barn carrying a turkey.

 

The turkey popped and sizzled in the pan. Sandor had cleaned it, Sansa had plucked it. It was roasting in the oven now, and Sansa was wishing she’d thought to get a few more things out of the house before she’d burned it- but no. A few more minutes may have allowed the men time to  wake and could have resulted in her continued captivity. 

 

Sandor came through the door then with another armload of wood. “Still fucking snowing,” he mumbled. Sandor had always hated the heat of Georgia, it had made his scars tingle. He thought he’d enjoy the north, but this cold was enough to make a man fear for his balls- no wonder honorable old Ned ended up with five kids of his own along with his sister’s bastard 

 

“Smells good,” he commented as he dumped the wood in a pile by the stove. 

“It’s the best I could do.” Sansa twisted a rag in her hands. “We need some things- other than the beef, we’re out of food.”

 

“What are you proposing to do about it?” Sandor looked around for something to do. Sansa had realized that about him over the last few days; he was never still. He wanted to fix things, to be doing something until he fell asleep at night. She wondered why. 

 

“There’s some money hidden. Enough for flour and sugar and a few things. Preserves, maybe. We’ve got enough hay and grain in the feed store to see the horses and chickens through the winter.”

 

“It’s your money,” said Sandor. “If you want to go shopping, we’ll go.”

 

They left early the next day. They didn’t want to wait any longer, another snowstorm could hit any day, so the sooner they had supplies and returned to Stark land the better. Sansa left the herd in their stalls; if they got back late she didn’t want to have to find them in the dark. 

 

The wagon rolled up the hill and down the snow-covered track that snaked from the Winterfell Ranch and through the small streets of Winter Town. The sun was bright when they made it onto Main Street and the leftover turkey on which they’d broken their fast was a memory. Sandor pulled the team to a halt in front of the little mercantile. It was sandwiched between a saloon and a tiny post office. A small boarding house was across the street, and the Methodist church was down on the corner. 

 

“Hop out. I’ll pull the wagon around and come in after you.”

 

Sansa scooted to edge of the tall wagon seat and dropped herself to the ground. Out of habit she arranged her skirts the way her mother had taught her and then moved onto the plank walkway and into the shop. 

 

It smelled just like she remembered- leather and peppermint candies and twist tobacco. Out of habit she eyed the pre-made dresses and the neat row of shoes hanging on the back wall. She sighed and moved to the counter where the shop owner greeted her.    
  


“Happy New Years Miss Stark.”

 

Sansa jolted. “New Years already?” She laughed and tried to pass it off in a  _ oh how time flies  _ kind of way. Ramsay had been alive on Christmas, he’d promised to give her a child, ‘one way or another’. She threw those thoughts out of her mind and focused on the task at hand.

 

Mr. Kettering smiled good naturedly and asked what he could get for her.    
  


Sansa had found fifteen dollars in the little hidey-hole in the tack room. Arya had found it one day (while stalking her older brother, Robb) and then had shown it to Sansa in a moment of sororal goodwill. 

 

She took care of their most pressing needs first- flour, coffee, and sugar were easy, and then she deliberated over rice and beans. In the end she took a few pounds of both. Preserves were more expensive- families canned their garden produce in the fall and kept it until spring came again. She had to pay for what the Ketterings had put aside for themselves, and those cans of vegetables came dearly. 

 

Sandor came into the shop while she was negotiating for soap. Sansa noticed the change in Mr Kettering immediately; he took a step back from Sansa and his cheerful smile slid away.

 

It occurred to Sansa that Mr. Kettering still assumed that Ramsay was alive and that Sandor was the guard sent to keep her in line. She hadn’t thought of it; Ramsay’s death had felt revelatory to her, but  _ no one else knew. _ If she was to keep other men from taking her land, she had to keep it that way. When Sandor came to join her at the counter she bowed her head and tried to look properly submissive. Sandor frowned but said nothing. 

 

A pound of scented soap was eleven cents, so Sansa agreed to the plain. “What flannel do you have?”

 

A few patterns were laid in front of her, as well as a blue and a deep grey. They grey was cheaper and less likely to draw attention. 

 

“The grey, do you think sir?”

 

Sandor looked down at her like she’d begun speaking Chinese to him. She would have laughed if she could. 

 

“Blue,” he said, and Mr. Kettering began to fold it like her opinion didn’t matter. In his eyes, it likely didn’t. She saw him slip a packet of needles and black thread into the folded material. He’d been a friend of her mothers, and this was probably a gesture of loyalty and pity. In her current situation she’d take it. 

 

She spent $12.64 of the fifteen dollars. Sandor loaded everything into the wagon and they rattled down the road again. “It’s New Years,” she said to Sandor as the pulled out of Winter Town. 

 

“Happy New Years,” he said. 

 

She tugged her scarf higher around her throat against the wind. “It’s 1863,” she said. “The war was only supposed to take six months, remember? That means father has been dead going on two years.”

 

The wagon wheels crunched over the snow along the road. The mountains spiked up in the distance, high and ominous, and the bare-branched trees along the road bowed and creaked in the breeze.

 

“We used to drive to Winter Town to join the mummers on New Year’s Eve. I sing horribly, but we had such fun going from house to house singing and drinking hot tea. Jon brought a flask the last time we went, rum I think, and it was the first time I was ever drunk. I was horribly unladylike.” Sansa blushed at the memory, and Sandor glanced at her with a little grin.

 

“Singing?” he asked.

 

“I did. And then in the wagon home I made up words to the songs.” 

 

She blushed even harder and Sandor was left to wonder just what kind of lyrics she’d sung to the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for making it here! I know there is a LOT of setup to this story, but only two more chapters until sex! PLEASE let me know what you think :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soldiers.  
> Death.  
> Decisions.

The peace was broken a little more than a week after their trip to Winter Town. 

 

Sandor was chopping more wood in the weak winter sun, allowing the heavy rhythm to soothe his buzzing mind, the creeping boredom, and thoughts of Sansa. Those last were the worst. It had occurred to Sandor that this is what his life could have been-probably  _ would  _ have been- if his brother hadn’t scarred him over a little tin soldier. He woke up to the sound of Sansa breathing, deeply asleep, and went to bed listening to her praying for the souls of her family. He knew the songs that she hummed when she was pleased, and he knew the way her brow knit when she was worrying. These were intimacies that he’d never expected to have with a woman. She cooked for him, cleaned the little bunkhouse, and smiled when he came inside. It was the smile that confused and heated him. 

 

He’d fallen into the domestic rhythm as well. He brought in wood, hunted meat, and helped her with the horses. He mucked stalls (a chore he’d never hated) and spent the evenings whittling spoons and low trenchers from knots of wood. They weren’t pretty, but as things stood they only had two plates and one tin spoon. 

 

“What happened here?” a man called from behind him, pulling Sandor from his thoughts. 

 

Sandor turned, ax in hand. Two riders were coming down the hill towards the black ashes of the house.  He walked to meet them, keeping to the higher land. The riders came and stopped their horses in the little depression between the steeper hill they’d just come down and the shallower rise of the hill to the house and barn. 

 

“We were sent with messages for the Bolton men. Do you know what happened?” one asked, his gloved hand resting lightly on the butt of a pistol. 

 

“Dunno,” Sandor replied, taking one step towards the man. He needed to be close to make the ax count. “I got here and the place was ashes. I’ve been living in the bunkhouse and looking after the horses, trying to figure out what would I should do.”

 

The first soldier dismounted, deciding to at least temporarily that Sandor wasn’t too much of a threat. The other soldier hesitated and dismounted too, coming forward to talk with his comrade and Sandor. “We heard you were dead,” he said. “Or taken prisoner at Bull Run.”

 

Of course they fucking recognized him; it was hard to mistake a man closer to seven feet than six that had half his godforsaken face burned off. “Sent north to recruit. You can see how that’s going,” Sandor said. 

 

And that’s when Sansa came over the hill. She was carrying the snowmelt bucket, and long red strands of hair had escaped from her braid to blow around her pale face. “Sandor?” she called. “Oh.”

 

The two soldiers turned and looked at Sandor, confusion in their eyes. 

 

Sandor swung his ax. It crunched through the chest of the first soldier, and Sandor heard scrabbling behind him. Abandoning the ax he turned and ducked to the side as a shot went off. He smelled gunsmoke and threw his shoulder into the other man, knocking him to the ground where Sandor used his greater weight to pin the man’s gunhand. He saw Sansa’s small boot kick the man’s Colt away. 

 

He stood up, chest heaving from the adrenaline. He couldn’t let them write of Sansa, couldn’t let them report on him. 

 

A gunshot echoed through the still air. Sansa stood over the fallen soldier, the revolver still pointed at his now-bloody skull. Without looking at Sandor she moved to the first one who was still gasping for breath, the ax embedded in his ribcage. Sansa shot him as well and stood with her head bowed, the gun held loosely at her side. Blood spread out from both bodies, looking almost black in the scuffed snow beneath them. 

 

She looked up then in one quick movement, like a deer startled from her drink. His eyes locked with hers and held for one long moment that smelled of blood and gunpowder and snow. She moved then, two quick steps towards him and pressed her lips over his, just a whisper of a touch, and then she was gone back up the hill. 

 

She returned with shovels. The ground was frozen, though, something she realized while Sandor was still reeling from the unexpected overture. “Should we ...burn them?” she asked, peeking at Sandor. 

 

“Better than leaving them in the woods.” 

 

They went through the pockets of the dead men and kept the coins and ammunition they found there.

 

He helped her drag the bodies to the patch of already scorched earth. They piled some dry firewood around them and Sansa threw in a burning branch. It took a quarter of an hour or so for the clothes to catch, and the smell of burning flesh followed soon after. Sandor threw another few pieces of wood and a flake of dry hay onto the blaze to try to make the fire hotter. 

 

The embers still smoldered when he went into the bunkhouse that night. He was later than normal but he didn’t think he could handle being in Sansa’s presence for too long; her kiss earlier had derailed his train of thought. He wanted her and yet he was horrified that she wanted him. He lusted for her, yet was ashamed of his urges after all he knew she’d been through. He could picture her now as clearly as if she was in front of him- she’d be sitting in front of the wood stove, a kerosene lamp turned up high on the table. She’d be bent over her sewing, the yellow light casting a golden glow over the little hairs that inevitably escaped to frame her face. She would be perfect and beautiful, a fine thing to be cherished, something far too good for the likes of him. 

 

Sandor rested his forehead against the cold wood of the door for a minute before going in. 

 

She was in front of the lamp sewing, just as he expected. A plate was on top of the stove, a worn but clean towel over it. She’d left him most of a rabbit and made biscuits and snap peas with it. He thanked her quietly and began to eat, glancing at her serene face. 

 

“I never thanked you,” she said, not taking her eyes off her sewing. She hadn’t ‘sir’ed him in a while, and Sandor couldn’t decide if he missed it. 

 

“Don’t thank me, girl.”

 

Sansa looked up at him then, her blue eyes serious. “I’ll always owe you. We both know I wouldn’t have made it this long without you.”

 

An outsider would have assumed that she was talking about today, maybe the last few weeks, but Sandor saw her in a rush of color and noise then- they way she’d looked gathered in front of the weathered grey ranch house with her family when the Baratheons came visiting; the way she’d looked when Joffrey and his friends had cornered her during a ball; the way she’d refused to cry when Cersei tried to marry her to the Imp; the way she’d looked the night he rode off to war with his men. 

 

He  _ hmmed  _ a noise that neither agreed nor disagreed and tucked into his meal. 

 

“Do you think more are coming?” she asked.

 

Sandor knew she meant Lannister soldiers. “Maybe. Probably be sent when Cersei doesn’t hear from those fools.” 

 

He washed his plate in the hot, slightly soapy pot of snowmelt still warming on the stovetop. Sansa had been surprised the first time he’d cleaned his plate and mug, and he’d snapped  _ I’ve lived on my own for thirty two fucking years, you think I’ve had maids at  _ my  _ beck and call?” _

 

She’d blanched and lowered her head back to the material she’d been cutting. He’d apologized then, again. He’d apologized to this woman twice now. 

 

“We should send a letter,” she said, pulling Sandor back to the present. “Tell Cersei that they’re helping the Boltons fill the larder and that all seems well.”

 

Sandor thought about it. “We don’t know their mission. It could have been something completely different. They didn’t have any written messages on them.”

 

“Still. Maybe it will buy us some time.”

 

Sandor agreed, and Sansa moved to dig around in the gunny sack that hung off the corner of her bed. She came back with a scrap of the brown paper that had been wrapped around their packages from Ketterings. A short piece of pencil emerged from the gunny sack as well. 

 

After flattening the paper on the table Sansa considered the missive. “Shall I start it with ‘Ms. Lannister?’” she asked. 

 

Sandor considered this. He knew Cersei had dropped her married name within hours of her husband’s death, Baratheon was out. 

 

“-or Madam,” Sansa said. “She is a widow.”

 

“Madam,” said Sandor. “She likes being a widow.”

 

Sansa carefully wrote out a brief letter and sealed it with a small, yellowy drop of candle wax. 

 

“I’ll take it in tomorrow. Is there anything else we need from town?” Sandor said. 

 

“No, I don’t think so. Not that we can afford, anyway.” 

 

Sandor stepped outside and scooped snow into the pan after tossing out the dishwater. He placed it on the stove to melt and heat. When it was hot Sandor would leave for the privy and give Sansa time to wash herself before bed. When he returned she would leave for the privy and afford him the same privacy. It had been an awkward dance at first, but now it was routine and almost soothing. 

 

After the lamp was out Sandor crawled up into his bed and listened to Sansa breathe until he fell asleep.

 

When Sansa woke the next day Sandor had already left and coffee was in the little percolator on the stove. She sipped a cup and wondered how early he’d gone. She hadn’t heard him, which was something in itself. While Ramsay had been alive she’d jumped at every creak and thump, terrified that he was returning to her bed to claim his marital rights. 

 

She fed the horses and mucked stalls. She had little callouses on her hands now, and she took a perverse pleasure in it. Before Atlanta and Joffrey and the war she did everything she could to keep her hands soft and white, to keep her hands looking like those of a lady. Arya had been the one with calluses: from climbing and carrying, from insisting on learning to shoot, from working with the horses and fixing tack. 

 

Sansa looked at her hands then, as the horses munched around her. Each palm had two little calluses, one under her middle finger and the other under the ring finger. She traced one with the tip of a finger. She liked these- no matter how small, they were a sign that she was becoming as tough on the outside as she had started to feel on the inside, for she knew that she had calluses on her soul. 

 

She turned the horses back out. They moved into their field in a flurry of hooves and steaming bodies and kicked-up snow. She watched them play and then turned to hurry back to the bunkhouse. She’d almost finished a shirt for Sandor with some of the material she’d brought back. Sansa had painstakingly deconstructed a torn, worn horse blanket from the tack room. She’d used some of the cotton batting and coarse wool outer layer to make Sandor’s shirt lined and quilted. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would be another layer of warmth. She’d cut and pinned a dress for herself as well, and the torso would be quilted too.

 

She bent over her needle and thread by the window of the little bunkhouse. Sansa had only been in the building a handful of times over the years. When she was very small she would hound Glover about the foals and fillies, begging to be taken to the spring pasture to pet the babies.

 

After she’d grown she’d realized how improper it was for her to go near the residence of four bachelor males. 

 

Sansa worked her way over the cuff of the shirtsleeve and let her mind drift as it always did as she sewed. As a child she’d liked to sew because it made her a  _ lady  _ and it was something at which she was so much better than Arya. As an adult- especially in the last year or two- she’d treasured her needlework for the distraction and glimmer of peace it had provided. 

 

When the sun was high she took a break for lunch. A cold biscuit and fried eggs were their normal mid-day fare, and she ate while standing at the window that had once faced the house. She could draw the outline of the mountains that ran along the back of their land with her eyes shut. She knew the angle of the morning sun and she could smell the pine sap and early spring flowers if she shut her eyes. She knew this land, this land was in her bones, and just like that she knew she’d have to leave it again. 

 

She returned to her sewing with that thought in mind. She wouldn’t be safe as long as Cersei ruled- for want of a better term- the south. Sandor wouldn’t be safe either, especially with her slowing him down. 

 

She needed to kill Cersei Lannister, the self-styled Queen of Georgia. 

 

When Sandor returned that afternoon the shadows were long and Sansa had a plan. 

 

Sansa met Sandor in the barn where he unsaddled Reaper. “How was town?” she asked, moving to Reaper’s head to take off the bridle. It was the damndest thing; the horse couldn’t stand people- at least men- other than Sandor, but the stupid horse had taken an immediate and keen liking to Sansa. 

 

“Fine. A methodist lady tried to talk me into coming to church,” Sandor said, scowling. 

 

Sansa thought that it must have been a brave lady indeed who approached Sandor about the state of his soul. Though, now that she was taking a critical look, it could have been something else. He was tall and strong, his shoulders sometimes seeming wide enough to block out the sun. He legs were long and his hips narrow. He was handsome, she supposed, despite the scars. 

 

_ No,  _ she decided,  _ he was handsome regardless of the scars.  _ She’d rather like to kiss him again. She’d surprised herself the last time; despite being ‘married’ (Ramsay made a mockery of the word) she had little experience with kisses.

 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sandor barked. “I didn’t do anything to the lady. Christ, I don’t run around hurting people for kicks. That’s my brother.”

 

Sansa came back to herself and looked at Sandor across the horse’s withers, where she was resting a grooming brush. “That’s not what I think, you know that. I know you don’t take pleasure in killing-”

 

“-that’s where you’re wrong,” he interrupted. “I absolutely do take pleasure in killing.”

 

Sansa blinked and then pressed on, “Well, you aren’t going to convince me that you get joy from hurting women and children.”

 

She turned on her heel and stomped into the bunkhouse, securing the last word for herself. 

 

Sandor didn’t know if she was trying to convince herself of that fool notion or if she actually believed it.

 

He finished grooming Reaper, checked the rest of the horses, and fed the chickens on the way into the bunkhouse. He could smell dinner before he made it inside, and when he did make it in his knees nearly went weak at the smell of frying chicken and simmering string beans. 

 

“I’ll go to town every fucking day if I get to come home to this,” he said, peering over Sansa’s shoulder at the chicken parts sizzling in the pan. 

 

She turned her face and smiled and he could see her eyes sparkling over her high cheekbones. “Maybe I’m just trying to soften you up,” she teased. 

 

“It’s working.” 

 

Sandor dunked his hands in the pan of lukewarm water they always kept on the back of the stove. He washed and sat at the little table, watching as Sansa turned dinner into a dance. Her hips swayed as she moved to check the simmering string beans- from their stash of preserves Mr. Kettering had sold them- and her shoulders shimmied as she gave them a good stirring. When she turned the chicken over she swayed, and Sandor swore he could almost hear music. 

 

Sansa watched Sandor eat with satisfaction. She’d eaten a wing and drumstick, and Sandor had finished the rest of the chicken. He ate neatly; something that Sansa had noticed about him right from the start. With a pang she remembered dinners with Arya, they way the younger girl would manage to get grease and crumbs from her mouth to her ears on nights Old Nan made fried chicken. No one had heard from Arya since father was killed, but Sansa still hoped she was out there. 

 

“Well, the buttering-up worked,” Sandor said as he put down the final nibbled-clean bone. “What do you want?” He tried to look fierce, but he was honestly too content to do a scowl justice. Sansa seemed to notice, because her lips quirked as she turned to move the wash pan to the front part of the stove.

 

“I think we should go south. We can’t stay here,” she said, turning to look at him. “More soldiers will come, and eventually Cersei will send a whole squadron to find out what’s happening. We could run- or I guess, I could run,” she said as her brow wrinkled, “but neither of us will be safe as long as Cersei has power.” 

 

Sandor glared at her. He didn’t like where this conversation seemed to be going. Reaching around her he grabbed the frying pan off the stove and stomped outside to dump the used fat deep in the woods where it wouldn’t attract animals. He’d forgotten his cloak in his anger, and the needling cold cleared his head. She was right, for fucks sake, but he didn’t want her to be. 

 

“Getting soft Clegane,” he muttered to himself as he stomped beyond the tree line. “You can’t get ideas about settling down, you’re a killer, a fucking killer. That’s all you’ve been, and all you’ll ever be.” 

 

A sneaking thought followed on the tail end of that little speech:  _ If you’re just a killer, you might as well kill for  _ **_her_ ** _. _

 

He dumped out the grease, rubbed some snow into the dark iron of the pan, and turned to stomp back to the tiny house that had started feeling like home. 

 

He argued just for the show of it. When he questioned how they would make it all the way back to Atlanta-  _ though a big fucking war,  _ as Sandor had pointed out- Sansa calmly replied that they would sell off all the horses other than their own. Horses were always needed for the war effort, so they should get a good price. 

 

Sandor was surprised, but she was absolutely right, and so he agreed, at least in principle. She’d been brought back to Winterfell through Cairo, Illinois, she said, and the Union troops stationed there were using the town as a supply depot. 

 

In the end they agreed on a plan. They would pack their supplies and leave for Cairo to sell the horses and fund their journey south- their journey to kill Cersei Lannister. 

 

The next fortnight flew by in a flurry of preparations. Sansa finished Sandor’s shirt and gave it to him before she began on her dress. He was surprised and uncomfortable and thankful for the effort she’d gone through for him. He wore the shirt (apparently intentionally large) over his original shirt like some sort of lightweight coat. 

 

While Sandor re-inventoried the barn for things that may be of use once they got on the road Sansa finished her dress. In the end she used the skirt of her other dress and only remade the bodice. The extra flannel went into a fur-lined shoulder cape and an extra-large pleat on the side of her skirt. 

 

They knew they were dawdling. Neither of them wanted to leave: Sansa felt in her gut that this would change her world once more, and Sandor dreaded having to take this still-soft woman through battle and death and destruction. Eventually, though, they set a day to depart. They sold the chickens and readied the wagon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping that if I post the first five chapters at once you lovely readers will stick it out until the first bit of nooky! Thank you so much for your time!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving Winterfell.  
> Building a fire.  
> Sleeping arrangements.

 

Sansa and Sandor watched the herd- small though it was, the horses were a unit- canter to the gate where they waited. Arya’s mare had been the leader of the pack once, before she and Sansa had ridden south with their father. Now one of the Bolton’s mares led the others to the gate.  _ Things change,  _ Sansa reflected. Things always changed. 

 

Sansa pulled herself onto the top rail of the fence. She’d sat in this spot to watch her brothers learn to ride. She’d sat here while Glover the stablemaster had trained yearlings and Robb learned to swing a sword and shoot a bow while astride. She hadn’t wanted to ride as badly as Arya had. Sansa had been content to sit and watch and rest her eyes from stitchery. There had always been horses on the Winterfell Ranch, and they had always been beautiful to watch- long legged and lovely, moving across the ground like a summer breeze, but warm and fierce and strong enough to survive the Montana winters.

 

Tomorrow she would leave home to sell this herd. She’d keep Darcy, and maybe Rickon’s pony could be kept as a pack horse. But the rest- the guest mounts, the ones that had come with the Bolton’s, father’s spare, even the draft team would be sold to fund their trip south. 

 

Sansa was quiet that night over dinner. It was a feast; they had to eat what they could, because not much could be taken with them. Sansa had told herself that it would be okay; that they’d be back to eat the flour and jam and everything else that couldn’t go with them. 

 

After the dishes were cleaned and everything set to rights Sansa continued to fuss with the saddlebags, checking and rechecking to see that everything was there, that it was securely packed, that this change didn’t signify the end of her family and her world. 

 

It couldn’t. That had already happened. 

 

Sandor watched her fuss from the corner of his eye. He was sharpening his bayonet, drawing the blade up and over the stone like an expert violinist would draw his bow over the strings. It was a motion soothing in its familiarity and chilling in its purpose. “We don’t have to go, little bird. We can stay here, ride out the winter, and see how things look in the spring.”

 

“We won’t be safe here, you know that. Eventually Cersei will wonder why those soldiers never returned. It doesn’t matter that we sent the letter, that just bought us some time. I’m sure there’s already a letter on the way back to us, one accompanied by suspicious soldiers.” She sat on the edge of the empty bottom bunk beneath her bed, her fingers running over the seam on her simple blue dress. “We can come back.”

 

Sandor knew she was trying to convince herself more than him, but a part of him thrilled to be included in the ‘we’. 

 

Sandor woke up slowly in the morning, warm in the too-small bunk that was cozy despite its literal shortcomings. He turned his head snake-fast when he realized he wasn’t hearing Sansa’s little morning huffs; they weren’t quite snores but her breathing usually changed in the morning soon before she woke. 

 

She wasn’t in the bunk, and it had already been stripped of its blankets. Sandor climbed down and splashed water over his face before pulling on his boots and cloak and going to look for Sansa. 

 

Her footprints led to the barn, and then he saw her back up on the fence. Her face was tipped up into the light as she apparently watched the sun come up over the jagged Montana mountains. It was a rare, clear day so the sky swirled with pinks and blues and oranges. As the light grew it reflected off the snow and haloed Sansa like a benediction. 

 

Sandor walked to the corral and leaned his arms on the top rail next to the sweet curve of her arse. The stood together and watched the sky grow ever brighter. Eventually Sandor decided to treat her like he might a raw recruit marching away from home for the first time. “You gonna sit here all day?” he asked, looking up at her with a mock glower. 

 

“I just wanted to remember,” she said before climbing down. 

 

They packed the wagon first. It would be sold along with the draft team, but for now it would be used to carry supplies and tether some of the younger horses. Sandor would drive the wagon (Sansa had no driving experience) and Sansa would lead a few of the older horses while mounted on Darcy. 

 

Sandor rolled his eyes so hard she’d expected him to fall over when he heard the name of her horse. “Darcy?”

 

“Yes! He’s named after a true gentleman!” Sansa blushed while she defended the rather childish name she’d given her gelding only a few years before. 

 

Sandor had just huffed and stomped off. Only later had it occurred to Sansa that somehow Sandor had known of Ms. Austen’s creation. 

 

Sansa saddled Darcy and paused while tightening the girth. She’d taken Arya’s saddle, the one her sister had insisted on having so she could ride astride. Sansa had only ever ridden sidesaddle, as a proper lady should, but now, well. They were riding into war, and Sansa thought the superior balance would only be a benefit. 

 

Arya had clumsily worked a wolf’s head into the leather of the saddle skirt. Glimpsing it brought back memories and strengthened Sansa’s resolve. 

 

She tethered six horses to the saddle, leaving plenty of slack in the ropes. Sandor secured Stranger and the other six to the wagon before coming to inspect Sansa’s work. 

 

Sansa looked over her shoulder as they crested the rise that would lead away from home. Black ash still showed through the snow where the house had been. The bunkhouse looked cozy but dark, no smoke drifting lazily from its chimney pipe. The ranch looked empty. The ranch looked cold. 

 

They didn’t make it far that first day. They had to stop to swap out two troublemaking horses who didn’t like their assigned group, and that was after they stopped at Kettering’s one last time to buy canteens and bullets for the Colts taken off the dead Lannister soldiers. Sandor also knew that Sansa likely hadn’t camped out under these conditions before; she’d mentioned that it was warm when the Boltons had brought her back to Winterfell. It would take time to make camp tonight, and probably for the next few nights as well. 

 

Sandor gave Sansa the option of hobbling the horses or clearing a circle and gathering kindling for a fire. She chose the fire, which was just as well, because it was Sandor’s least favorite chore for obvious reasons. He came back to the little clearing to find her striking flint and steel together over and over with no results. He sighed internally, not wanting to start the evening off on a bad note, and knelt next to her. 

 

“You build a little tipi out of the medium sized sticks, see? This lets plenty of air into the fire. A fire can’t burn without air.” Sandor arranged the sticks properly.

 

“That’s why you smother a cooking fire with the pot lid,” Sansa said, with the air of someone connecting clues. 

 

“Exactly. The smallest and driest pieces go in here, that’s what you light first.” She had a tiny handful of straw that Sandor fluffed on the inside of the little tipi. 

 

He struck sparks into the little straw nest, blew lightly on it, and watched a little flame curl up. 

 

“It’s easier when there isn’t snow,” he said when Sansa’s shoulders slumped. 

 

They ate biscuits and pulled a mostly frozen roast chicken out of the wagon. Darkness fell and Sansa began unrolling blankets. They had six blankets, plus their cloaks, and Sansa had planned on sleeping next to the fire. 

 

That plan was dashed by the immediate drop in temperature. 

 

“Come over here,” Sandor growled at some point after darkness had fallen. 

 

“Why?” asked Sansa through chattering teeth.

 

“You’re keeping me awake. Keep thinking skeletons are sneaking up on me.”

 

Sansa abandoned pride and propriety, but not her blankets. Those she drug over to Sandor’s pallet and arranged between him and the fire. He tugged her down, wrapped an arm around her, and mumbled  _ don’t roll into the fire  _ before promptly dropping off the sleep. 

 

Sansa stayed awake for a few moments more, contemplating how warm she was and how… oddly safe she felt beside this man. She’d hated the nights that Ramsay had insisted on sleeping by her; in truth she hadn’t been able to sleep at all. With Sandor, well. She didn’t really want to think about it. 

 

When she fell asleep she was warm right down to her toes.

 

Sansa woke stiff and sore in every part of her being, even her eyelids seemed to ache. She had never ridden astride before, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from whimpering as Sandor boosted her onto Darcy. She suspected he knew, because he ducked his head away as he walked to the wagon. 

 

The next days didn’t improve, but the nights did. Sansa cheered when she got the fire to catch on her first try, and Sandor grinned at her openly, the smile lighting up his whole face. She didn’t even pretend to sleep on her own, but immediately snuggled up to Sandor as tightly as she could in their blanket nest. She’d fall asleep with her head pillowed on his flannel-covered arm, and he’d fall asleep with the scent of her hair twining through his senses. Sandor would also wake with his cock painfully hard, his body ready to sink into the soft and slumbering woman next to him. 

 

By the fourth day Sansa was sore- oh so sore- but the stabbing pain she’d felt through her thighs and arse was fading. She was also distracted by the man driving the wagon along the snowy roads in front of her. He seemed so unaffected by their proximity, whereas when she woke she was a mess of lustful dream fragments and unsatisfied cravings deep in her belly. 

 

She’d wonder about it at they rode. Darcy would follow the wagon without any cues from her now, and she was able to hold the reins in her left hand and daydream the day away. 

 

She’d been married for more than a year, and Ramsay had been most insistent about exercising his marital rights. He’d taken them at least once a day, every single day, even the days she’d been on her moon blood. He’d once made her lick her blood off of his cock, lecturing her all the while that if only she would let his seed catch she wouldn’t have to deal with the indignities of servicing him or having to cope with her womanly indisposition. 

 

Sex had become a thing to dread, something that was used to barter her or belittle her or to try to strip her of her dignity and sanity and will. 

 

And still she wondered what it would be like with Sandor. 

 

He’d treated her so respectfully. He never peeked at her if she asked him to turn his back, and he’d been teaching her to fight with a knife. He’d even promised to keep her safe and never to hurt her one night in Georgia. 

 

She’d been sitting on the wide front porch of the Lannister’s Georgia estate. It was a mid April evening, and the air was soft with the scent of hyacinth and lilac. Early peepers were singing in the trees, and the breeze blew just enough to rustle the dogwood branches. 

 

He’d walked out of the shadow of the house and into the little circle of light her lamp had cast.

 

“Come with me,” he’d asked. “I’m heading north, the 3rd is leaving tonight. I can keep you safe, everyone here is afraid of me, anyway. You don’t have to marry Joffrey. I can give you a little money and get you on a train north.”

 

She’d eyed him warily, suspecting it was a trap. The Hound had always been loyal to Joffrey and Cersei- though his small acts of rebellion had all been in her favor. He’d refused to beat her, had intervened when the plantation overseer had offered to step in and give her his brand of discipline.  

 

On that damned April evening in the soft night air he’d promised not to hurt her and had said he would try to keep her safe. She hadn’t gone with him, and had shown herself to be a fool.

 

She’d wished she’d done it; she’d cried herself to sleep over her own stupidity more than once. She’d thought it was a trap, she thought perhaps Joff would find someone else he wanted to marry, she’d thought her mother would come for her. 

 

Her hopes had repeatedly been crushed. 

 

He was here again, though. Sandor was here, and she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to rub herself against him and she wanted to be petted in the gentle, confident way he stroked his horse. 

 

They rode through a tiny town that day. The post office had been inside the dry goods store, it’s only presence depicted by a little sign that said, “Custer Post Office inside”. 

 

She’d heard of this town. Robb and Theon had mentioned it after one of their trips. 

 

As they rode into the afternoon, Sansa Stark concocted a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT CHAPTER!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRASH TRASH TRASH TRASH TRASH

Sandor knew something was on Sansa’s mind. Usually she crawled into their cocoon after he did; she joked that she was letting him warm it up for her. Sandor didn’t mind. At least not much. He thought that if he had to hold her every night, just hold her, all the way to godforsaken Georgia his cock would fly off and he’d lose his sanity.

 

She crawled into the blankets tonight right after they finished burying the remains of their meal and had burrowed into him when he’d come to join her. She didn’t fall asleep almost immediately like she usually did either. Instead she held still, muscles too stiff to be sleeping, and traced little patterns on his chest with the tip of one fine-boned finger. 

 

“What’s bothering you?” he finally huffed. “I’m going to toss you in the snow if you don’t stop tickling me.”

 

The finger disappeared into a dainty fist. 

 

“I want to go somewhere different tomorrow,” she said slowly. As if those words had cleared the dam the rest followed in a torrent. “It’s less than a day’s ride from the main road and then we can camp there and keep going, okay? Theon and Robb talked about it.”

 

Sandor considered. She hadn’t complained, not even once, and if it would cost only a day, well. What the fuck could it hurt. He was getting old and stiff, a short break from the rock-hard wagon seat wouldn’t go amiss. 

 

“That’s fine, lass. Where are we going?” 

 

Sandor taunted himself by wrapping a loose strand of her hair around one of his fingers. It seemed to relax Sansa- he felt her beginning to melt against his chest like she normally did- and so he gingerly ran his fingers over the crown of her head. 

 

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she yawned. “Don’t worry. It isn’t dangerous.”

 

Sandor surely hoped not.

 

Within a few minutes she was boneless against him, only her nose sticking out from the blankets tucked around his shoulders. He tried to ignore the want raging through him and eventually he fell asleep. 

 

The next day they came to a little fork in the road. A rock had the word “SPRINGS” painted on it in white block letters with a little arrow pointing due south. Sansa called, “Take this one!” to him, so Sandor turned onto the narrower road and continued to drive. 

 

Two or three hours later (it was hard to tell from the sun today, the clouds were low and dark and angry) they came to a rock outcrop and the end of the little road. Sandor supposed that this was where she wanted to go, so he pulled the brake lever on the wagon and climbed down.

 

“The fuck is here?” he asked as Sansa moved to hobble the horses she’d been towing along. 

 

“You’ll see!” 

 

This time she really smiled at him, an eye-crinkling grin that reminded him of the girl she’d been before the Lannister’s had dug in their claws. Sandor suspected that he was going to be bored as hell, but this detour would be worth it just for that smile. 

 

_ Ah fuck.  _ Sandor thought.  _ She’s gotten to you, you old dog.  _

 

It turned out that not only was Sandor absolutely not bored in the best possible way, but he would come to think longingly of the the little dead end-road that brought them to this cliff-face. 

 

When the horses were hobbled and fed Sansa picked up their saddlebags and grabbed Sandor’s hand.  She towed him towards an opening in the rock wall, mumbling, “Robb and Theon said it was in here somewhere.”

 

Sandor heard the rush of water and smelled what he would politely call bad eggs before he saw the opening of the cave. He only had to duck a little to get into the cave itself, but once inside he saw in the gloom that the ceiling of the cave had to be twenty feet high. He was standing on smooth, sloping rock that continued back for thirty yards or so before dropping off into the plunge basin of a steaming, thrumming waterfall. 

 

It was warm and humid in the cave, and Sandor entertained the errant thought of just setting up camp and living in the cave forever, or at least until spring. He wondered if Sansa would go for it. He could tell her that bears slept the winter away in caves, and so could they. 

 

Sansa put their saddlebags down by the wall and wrinkled her nose. “Robb didn’t mention that the water smelled like this.”

 

“I’ve heard of springs like this from trappers,” Sandor said, watching the hot water cascade into the rock bowl with fascination. “They said most of them smell. One lady tried to tell us that they smell because hell is closer to us here, and these were the devil’s waters.” He laughed then at Sansa’s expression. 

 

“We should bring the horses in here,” he said, turning away from the waterfall and stream. “Once I get in that water I can’t guarantee I’ll get back out again, and we don’t want our future cash walking away in the night.”

 

Sansa agreed, and shivered at the slap of cold air that greeted her beyond the cave mouth. The brought the horses into the cave, and some of the food, and were finally able to relax. 

 

“Um,” Sansa began. 

 

Sandor rolled his eyes again. She was giving him a bad habit. “Just get in,” he told her. She rummaged in her saddlebag, grabbed something, and then scurried towards the water. 

 

Sandor turned his back. He wasn’t going to peek. She deserved someone better than a peeping fucking Tom. He turned when he heard a splash. 

 

Her back was to him, and he watched her splash a little in the water as he shucked off his boots and shirts and trousers. He hopped in beside her, and when he came up out of the water (which at first was almost uncomfortably hot, he almost regretted getting in as he did) he saw Sansa’s shocked expression.

 

“I never said I wasn’t going to get in, just that I wouldn’t watch  _ you  _ get in.”

 

Sansa shut her mouth. She wasn’t shocked that Sandor had gotten in the pool with her; she was shocked at, well, him. His chest was covered in scars and dark hair. He far more muscular than Ramsay had been, and Sansa had to make a concerted effort to look away. 

 

“As you please,” she said, just for something to say. She ran the sliver of soap she’d taken into the pool with her over the curve of her left shoulder. The steam rising from the water obscured most of Sandor; at least the bits under and just above the water, so she was confident she was mostly hidden as well. When she saw the way his eyes followed the movement of the soap over her skin Sansa decided to have a little fun with the man who’d been driving her to distraction without any sign of interest on his part. 

 

“I haven’t been this warm since, since Georgia, I think,” Sansa sighed, and moved to soap her other shoulder.

 

Sandor huffed a noise of agreement. “May I have the soap when you’re done?” he asked in a strangled voice.

 

This was a mistake. He should have stayed up with the horses until she was done. He should have stayed in the fucking  _ snow _ until she was done. The tops of her shoulders were all he could see clearly, but even that much clear white skin had his cock throbbing. 

 

Sansa just kept washing, humming Aura Lee to herself, her body angled not quite towards Sandor, but not totally away, either. The humming was buzzing through his brain like a saw. Maybe these pools were directly over hell, because that’s where Sandor was going. He kept trying to look away, but  _ oh god she was washing her little tits oh sweet Jesus.  _

 

Sandor turned away so fast a little wave splashed into Sansa’s face. It occurred to her then that he might not be attracted to her. That was a sobering thought, and a depressing one. She’d thought he’d been attracted to her back in Georgia- she’d seen the way men had looked at her, and Sandor had looked the same way, at least some of the time. When he thought she wasn’t looking. But now… maybe she was tainted by Ramsay. It would make sense. She  _ felt  _ tainted by Ramsay. 

 

She turned away and kept washing, quickly finishing the task now that she wasn’t trying to tease Sandor. 

 

“Here’s the soap,” she said quietly, keeping her back to him. She curled her arm around her back and held out the soap. 

 

Sandor turned, expecting to see only more temptation, but instead saw only Sansa’s back. She was holding the soap behind her, and he gingerly took it and began to wash. 

 

“I’m going to get another piece of soap and our clothes. We might as well get those clean. Will you, uhh, keep looking that way?” she asked, her voice still flat. 

 

“Sure,” he responded. 

 

Sandor heard a few little drips and the light smack of her bare feet over stone as she moved to cut another sliver from their bar of soap and gather their clothes. She got back in with another splash. 

 

“There’s a little ledge over here we can sit on or use as a step,” she said. 

 

Sandor realized that she was talking to him using the voice she’d used with Joffrey. That  realization was enough for him to tamp down the purple cloud of lust that had settled on his senses. Something had gone wrong in between him getting in the water and her fetching their clothing. 

 

He turned enough to be able to see her out of the corner of his eye. She’d dunked his trousers and was enthusiastically working up a lather by rubbing bunched material together. Sansa had started to hum, and that relieved Sandor. She usually only hummed when she was relaxed and focused on whatever task was in front of her. 

 

Sandor ran the sliver of soap over his scalp until he felt bubbles. After carefully placing the tiny remaining piece of soap on the edge of the pool he dug his fingers into his hair and enjoyed feeling really, truly clean. He dunked and rinsed his hair, the water a little too hot on his scars.  

 

Sansa was singing, then, a little off key, “... Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing; were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing.”

 

Something was tickling at his memory. He hummed along, following the thread of the melody back into his childhood.  “...mighty fortress is our god, a bulwark never failing,” he mumbled along with Sansa when she returned to the refrain. 

 

“You know this song?” she said, turning to look at him. 

 

“My mother sang it, I think. She would sing it to me while she cooked. She liked to sing.” 

 

Sandor was half in the past (trying to remember a woman that in his memory was nothing more than a tumble of dark curls and a sweet soft smell) but managed to pull himself back to the here and now: here he had a beautiful, naked woman in front of him, and now she was looking at him again with curiosity in her big blue eyes.  

 

“What happened to your mother?” Sansa asked.

 

“She died of a fever not long after my sister was born. I can only remember her a little,” said Sandor. 

 

“Was it before, um-”

 

“Yes, she died before I was burned.”

 

Sandor sat on the little rock step Sansa had pointed out. It was a nice change from the wagon seat. He didn’t really want to talk about this, but at least she was looking at him and talking to him again. “When I was little- when I was five I was playing in the Lannister kitchens, my father was their steward. Anyway, Gregor came in and saw me playing with a tin soldier that he’d had as a kid. He didn’t ask me to put it down, he didn’t say anything, he just pressed my face into the coals of the cookfire like I was a nice juicy mutton chop.”

 

Sansa went paler than normal, so Sandor rushed on, “The pain was bad, but the smell was worse- hair and flesh burning-” his scars pulled at the memory “-but the worst part was that it was my own brother. And my father protected him; he told everyone my bedding had caught fire.”

 

Sansa dropped the laundry she’d been holding and threw her arms around his waist. “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice thick. 

 

Sandor had no fucking idea what to do; he’d never had an abused, naked woman throw herself against him in the bath. He put his arms around her loosely, so she could escape if she wanted, and tried to think of anything other than her soft little breasts pressed against his sternum. 

 

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated looking up at him, her blue eyes dark with grief- and then she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down and herself up and laid her mouth on his. 

 

It hadn’t been a conscious decision on her part. She’d wanted to comfort him, to tell him that the child he’d been hadn’t deserved this fate, but those emotions mingled with the confusion and  _ want  _ that had been brewing and it overflowed into a kiss that was as clumsy as it was passionate and well meant. 

 

Sandor’s hands moved to cradle the face that was pressed to his. His eyes were still open in surprise, and he could see each of Sansa’s eyelashes, deep auburn at the root and almost blonde at the tip. 

 

She pulled away from him then, her eyes cautious and lips damp. 

 

Sandor wasn’t done yet. He pulled her back to him, thoughtlessly cupping her arse with one hand so he could hike her up and kiss her properly; his other hand cradling the back of her head. She wrapped her legs around him and dug her fingers into his hair. He didn’t even think of whether or not she was touching his scars; at the moment he couldn’t even remember if he had scars. Sansa was nibbling across his lips and pulling on his hair so hard it might come out in her fists. She smelled like woman and soap and heat and he needed her more than, well, than anything. 

 

He tentatively tried to lick along her bottom lip but she was trying to nibble his and so his tongue got pinched and it was clumsy again, but when they hit the rhythm it was like coming  _ home,  _ there was a rightness to it that warmed and terrified him.

 

Thew drew apart, both panting, Sansa looking down at him as she kneeled over his lap. She could feel his erection pressing against her leg and knew that if he wanted he could be inside her in moments. She scooted away, trying to float herself off to the side so she could sit next to him on the ledge. 

 

Sandor wasn’t sure why Sansa moved away, but he didn’t like it. He put his hands to her waist and tugged her back. He loved the way she looked right now- cheeks pink, eyes dilated, skin glowing with steam and sweat. Her hair was curling in little waves around her face, and Sandor wanted to ask if he could help wash it (he had a whole list of fantasies involving her hair, but he’d happily settle for getting his hands in it.)

 

“No!” Sansa pried at his fingers and Sandor let go like he’d grabbed a hot pan. Of course she didn’t want to be in his lap, an ugly brute like him. 

 

The silence was horrible. The waterfall roared behind them, and the occasional stamp of one of the horses echoed through the cave like a canon. Sandor was staring away from Sansa, his damp hair drying in waves, and Sansa was huddled along the edge of the pool stealing glances at him. 

 

“I liked kissing you,” she offered shyly. Just for something to do Sansa rescued the half-clean trousers from where they’d wrapped around a rocky outcrop at the entrance to the little stream that drained the pool. “I just don’t want to, umm. I don’t want to fornicate with you,” she said, and blushed almost as red as her hair. 

 

“Fornicate,” Sandor repeated. He had absolutely no idea where to go from here. He’d never actually met someone who used the word  _ fornicate  _ outside of a fucking church. 

 

“Right.” Sansa was still red and couldn’t bear to look across the water at Sandor. “I liked the kissing, it was much better than I expected, but I know I don’t like the, um. The rest of it.”

 

Sandor was starting to worry that Sansa’s head would explode, she was blushing so hard. He knew now what the problem was. He’d heard of the Boltons; they were slave-holding ranchers who were infamous through the territories for their incredible cruelty. Runaways who were unlucky enough to be returned to the Bolton lands were skinned alive and left to rot, their suppurating musculature an example to everyone who considered crossing the Boltons. 

Sandor wouldn’t have left a dog in their care, let alone a woman. He could only imagine the things Sansa had seen and suffered at their hands.  Finally, with a feeling of rightness, Sandor had a Plan. 

 

“Come here, little bird. No, I’m not going to, uh, fornicate with you.” Sandor couldn’t help the way he grimaced around the word. “I just want to touch you. I like touching you.” 

 

Sansa allowed herself to be towed over to Sandor who stood her in front of him facing away. He slowly unbraided her hair and picked up the sliver of soap. “Dunk,” he instructed, pressing lightly on one shoulder. She came back up and Sandor began working his tiny piece of soap into her scalp. 

 

“Mmm,” Sansa sighed. “You’re a very good lady’s maid, Sandor.” 

 

She must have decided that since fornication was off the table she was safe. “Are you okay, um, not…” she made a frustrated gesture that Sandor had to translate as  _ fucking.  _  “Ramsay said if a man stayed frustrated and didn’t relieve himself often enough it could make him ill.”

 

“And you believed that little twat?” Sandor kept his fingers gentle in her hair. 

 

“I didn’t know what to believe. He would mix the truth into his falsehoods.” Her head was lolling to one side now, and Sandor had to grit his teeth against the ideas his cock was getting. 

 

“That one was a lie. Men don’t need to come any more than ladies do.” 

 

Sansa’s hair was much darker when it was wet, and Sandor tried to focus on the simple pleasure of having his fingers in it. He needed to somehow tell her that he wasn’t a threat to her, but also that sex wasn’t always a misery. That was a tall order, seeing as she had fine scars running over her back, many of them in a deliberately spaced criss-cross pattern. Sandor ran one sudsy palm down her spine and over the curve of her bum to see how far they went. From what he felt, they went all the way down. 

 

Sansa had stiffened at the caress. Sandor threw caution to the wind and decided to try something- it was unlikely that he could make this any worse, and besides, she’d always been too good for him. 

 

He cued her to rinse, and she did, and when she came back up he turned her and asked, “Do you trust me?” 

 

Even to his own ears he sounded annoyed and so he gave it one last go: “Do you trust me?”

 

She nodded, so he picked her up (despite her height, despite what she had survived she felt fairy-fine) and placed her on the smooth stone edge of the pool. 

 

“Lie back,” he said, standing at her knees. She did, but propped herself up on her elbows. 

 

“What are you going to do?” she asked with deep suspicion. 

 

“Something that’s just for you.” He took a deep breath, trying to tamp down on the anger and lust and frustration that had been spiraling in his head and groin.

 

“I can promise you that I’m not going to put my cock anywhere near this,” he tugged one deep russet curl-

 

“-kitty,” Sansa said, and lay all the way back with her hands over her face, “Arya and I called  _ that part  _ ‘kitty’. We heard Theon call it a pussy, but Robb said not to be vulgar, so we called that a kitty.”

 

Sandor almost had an aneurysm he was working so hard not to laugh, but as it would have totally ruined the mood he pressed on, “My cock will not come anywhere near this  _ kitty  _ until I’ve got you between clean sheets and you’re absolutely begging for it.”

 

Sansa uncovered her face, looking doubtful. “What if I don’t ever want your…  _ cock.”  _ She said the word like she was tasting it. Sandor vowed to teach her as many vulgar words as he could, at least then she’d have something to remember him by. 

 

“That’s fine too,” Sandor managed to say. “But I think you will eventually. Can I  _ please  _ try something now?”

 

That last bit came out a bit more raggedly than he would have preferred. Sansa nodded, and Sandor said a silent thanks to any god who might be listening. He scooted her knees apart, noting the tension in her thighs, and impulsively pressed a kiss to the side of one knee. Sansa jumped but then relaxed so he did it again, just for the hell of it. 

 

He eventually decided to take pity on her, so Sandor gently parted the protective curls with his fingers and admired the pink, sweet womanhood now on display just for him. He took a deep breath to relax himself but that backfired horribly because now he smelled her arousal (sweet and salt and woman) and he had to lock his knees to stay upright in the waist-deep water. 

 

He went in tentatively. He’d never actually done this; he’d only seen it done by husbands and wives on cattle drives or certain prostitutes in brothels through Atlanta. He licked up her  _ kitty  _ (sometimes he still couldn’t believe she was real) and she jumped in surprise. He peeked over her mons and saw her watching him, her eyes dilated. 

 

Sandor got back to the task in front of him. He worried her little nub (he knew that much at least) with his lips and tongue until she was writhing against him and he had to put a forearm across her hips to pin her down. 

 

Sansa was making needy, throaty sounds, and it was the sweetest thing Sandor had ever heard, and when he gave a little suck her thighs clamped around his ears and then all he could see or smell or feel was Sansa about her pleasure and it was a beautiful thing, an almost holy thing to behold. 

 

She lay panting in the aftermath with her eyes shut and her bones turned to oatmeal. She opened one eye in time to see Sandor dunk and scrub his face, which was absolutely embarrassing, but the mortification floated somewhere above her like the stars- it was there, it existed, but at the moment that emotion had nothing to do with her. 

 

Sandor chuckled, a rough, dark sound, and Sansa smiled dreamily in reply. Eventually she dragged herself back into the water to rinse off the stickiness and sweat, but even then she decided to float on her back in the hot (if still slightly smelly) water and bask in her glow. 

 

Sandor had been right- it was just for her, it didn’t involve a… cock (she even thought the word tentatively), and it  _ was  _ excellent. And he wasn’t even bothering her for more. She flipped over and treaded water, moving with easy experience, to watch Sandor. 

 

He was doing laundry. He was doing  _ her  _ laundry; his shirts and trousers were already spread flat on the edge of the pool. Surely he deserved some kind of treat. 

 

Sansa swam to him (she didn’t know how long they’d been in the water but she didn’t care if her body turned into one big wrinkle because it was so  _ warm _ ) and pressed against his chest. “Sit,” she said. He sat on the bench, but she pushed him towards the upper edge of the pool so he sat there where she wanted him. 

 

She caught sight of his cock then, even though he kind of huddled over it with his elbows blocking the view. It was huge, huge and red, and Sansa nearly lost courage. But this was Sandor, not Ramsay, and he’d done the same for her. She could at least try. 

 

She pushed his elbows out of the way and splayed one hand on his chest, nudging him back. Sansa kneeled on the ledge, took his manhood to hand (she could almost-but-not-quite touch her thumb to her middle finger, the thing was unnatural) and eased the tip of it into her mouth. 

 

Sandor decided that these caves were located directly over hell, centered right above the throne room of Beelzebub himself, because demon influences were the only reasonable explanation as to why a good girl like Sansa would voluntarily suck the cock of a monster like himself. “You don’t have to do this,” he said, even as he wrapped Sansa’s wet hair around his palm and held it lightly to the crown of her head. 

 

Sansa pulled her mouth off his dick but her hand kept pumping.  “I know. I wanted to do this for you,” she said shyly, and then went back at it. Sandor watched for a second, watched his cock disappearing between her pretty pink lips, and nearly came right there. He screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth and generally tried to comport himself like a man older than fifteen years. 

 

“I’m going to spill,” her warned her a few wet sucks later. When she didn’t stop he tried again, “Sansa I’m going to come  _ oh Christ Jesus, Sansa, oh god.” _

 

She’d even swallowed his come. When he opened his eyes again she was sitting with her head resting on his knee and looking up at him like a cat in a whole room full of canaries. 

 

“You liked that,” she said with a smirk in her voice. 

 

“I certainly did,” he admitted, lowering his body into the water beside her. He gathered her into his lap and tucked her head against his shoulder. “That was a wonder to me.”

 

He could admit that now, while his cock was soft and she curled in his arms.

 

“You were a wonder to me, too,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it! Thank you for sticking the story out this far, and please let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More time in the hot springs.  
> Their journey south continues.

 

She fell asleep on him, and since he kept nodding off himself he forced them both up and out of the pool as he didn’t want either of them to drown. Muzzily Sansa rolled out their blankets and made their normal nest even though it was plenty warm enough for them to sleep on their own. Sansa was asleep as soon as she curled into him, and Sandor fell right after her in more ways than one. 

 

Sansa woke warm-uncomfortably warm, actually. She kicked herself free of the blankets and padded away to check her clothing. It was still soaking wet; the humidity must make it harder to dry, so she wrapped herself in a blanket, stepped barefoot into her boots, and went to relieve herself outside of the cave. When she reached the opening her teeth started to chatter and she saw a wall of white. A small amount of snow had blown just inside the cave, and it crunched underfoot. The snow wasn’t particularly high yet, but it was coming down in sheets tinged a grey-ish orange by the sun setting through the storm.

 

She stepped out only as far as she had to, did her business, and shivered her way back into the cave.

 

Sandor jumped and cursed when something that felt like ice pressed against his legs. “It’s snowing,” Sansa said by way of explanation, burrowing into him like a puppy. 

 

“It’s always fucking snowing,” Sandor griped, trying to get comfortable again. “We’re in the fucking Dakota Territory, it’s January, so it’s snowing.” 

 

Those frozen feet pressed back against him in punishment. “It’s really snowing, it’s a blizzard out there. I could barely see.”

 

“There are worse places to get snowed in,” Sandor said, and he went back to sleep.

 

Sansa couldn’t get back to sleep, so she tucked the blanket around her like a toga (she’d seen a picture of some Roman statue in a newspaper) and went to feed the horses. They’d brought most of the grain in the wagon with them. Wild horses would break the ice and forage under the snow for grass and plants, but that wouldn’t keep the stock in good weight, and getting under the snow could be a hard task for a horse this far north. 

 

She dug through the saddlebags, but nothing caught her interest. She checked the clothes, but they had barely made it from ‘soaking wet’ to ‘quite damp’. Since she wasn’t interested in trying to force herself into wet clothes she moved them up away from the spring (she should have thought of it sooner; who tried to dry clothes in a cloud of steam?) and hoped they wouldn’t freeze or be stepped on by the horses. 

 

Sansa was hungry and bored, or bored and hungry. They’d brought some human food in as well and had left it up at the entrance to stay cold. Sansa had to dig it out of a snow drift and once more her teeth were chattering, but in the end she came back with the deep dutch oven and winter carrots and a rabbit Sandor had prepared last night. 

 

She waited impatiently for the rabbit to thaw, wishing she could build a fire. They didn’t have fuel, though, and she certainly wasn’t going outside. 

 

“Stop humming,” Sandor growled from their pallet. “I’m bloody awake, so stop humming.”

 

Sansa hadn’t realized that she was doing it, but she was glad Sandor was awake. She felt energized by what they’d done in the hot spring and the nap after. Now she had questions. She plunked down on the blankets by Sandor and flopped onto her back. 

 

He’d opened one eye to watch her. That silver eye closed, and he commented, “Only you could make a blanket look good.”

 

“Thank you,” Sansa said, pleased. “Will you tell me more about your mother? Or your father?” She’d know that Sandor had to have been a child, everyone was, but when she’d met Sandor he was known as the Hound, and his brother (an eight foot giant of a man) was called the Mountain, and it was hard to imagine that either of them had ever been born. Sansa had been more likely to believe that they’d both stepped fully formed from a rock carving.But now she’d heard Sandor hum a hymn and mention his mother and she wanted to know more. 

 

Sandor apparently didn’t share her interest in having a conversation. “Will you tell me more about Ramsay?” he snarked.

 

He’d expected Sansa to say no and go back to fussing with whatever she’d been playing with. He was prepared to say, “And I don’t want to talk about my family either,” but she threw him off when she said, “I suppose I could,” with obvious reluctance.

 

Now Sandow was torn. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to hear about the things her former husband had done to her, but if he backed out now it would make him look like even more of a callous arsehole. He did allow himself one groan of frustration as he flung a forearm over his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

 

“What happened after you were burned? Did Gregor get in trouble?”

 

“No. Everyone pretended it didn’t happen, including me.”

 

“Did you always want to be a soldier?” 

 

Sansa stark was fucking persistent. Her sister had been a stubborn little wolf-bitch, so it likely ran in the family. “No. I worked at an inn, and then in a blacksmith’s shop.”

 

“But you hate fire,” Sansa interrupted.

 

Sandor sat up. “Who told you that?” he asked, staring down at Sansa’s oval face amidst a sea of waving red hair. He’d never seen it dry and unbound, and it distracted him. 

 

She rolled her eyes. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

 

Sandor sure as shit hoped not. “Don’t go spreading that about, as I’m what stands between you and the rest of the world at the moment.” He lay back down. This was not going the way he’d expected. 

 

“How did you end up working for the Lannisters?”

 

Sandor groaned again. He hated this game of hers. “If I feed you, will you stop?”

 

Sansa’s answer was far too perky for his liking: “I already brought the rabbit in to thaw, and besides, you can’t wear wet clothes into the snow. You’d freeze.”

 

“I hear that’s at least a painless way to go,” he mumbled.

 

Sansa poked him in the ribs. “Don’t be mean.” When he didn’t respond she poked him again. 

 

Sandor rolled himself over Sansa so that she was bracketed by his forearms. “I think it’s my turn,” he said. 

 

Sansa nodded seriously, but her eyes were sparkling. 

 

“Did you like what we did in the pool?” Sandor asked. 

 

Sansa’s eyebrows furrowed. “I thought you were going to ask about Ramsay,” she said slowly. 

 

“I changed my mind. You asked about being a soldier,” he pointed out. 

 

Sansa blushed and nodded up at him. A streak of impishness had gotten into Sandor, so he asked, “C’mon, little bird, answer the question. Did you like what we did over there?”

 

“Yes,” she squeaked, her cheeks going even more pink. “I liked it.”

 

“Would you be willing to do it again?”  Sandor was still hovering over her, and he moved his face a little closer. He wanted to kiss her.

 

Sansa had to close her eyes for this answer, but she managed another  _ yes. _

 

“Do you think I could try something else?” he asked carefully. When Sansa’s eyes popped open in alarm, he quickly added, “Still no cock. I promised, remember?” Now Sandor let his voice get lower, maybe just a little wicked. “I’m not going to let my cock get near your sweet little  _ pussy  _ until you’re in a bed and begging for it.”

 

Sansa still looked at him in a pitying way, as though trying to convey that that would never happen, but at least she wasn’t as full of fear as she had been last time. Sandor stretched out on his side and began tugging at the folds of her blanket-dress. 

 

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

 

“I want to try that new thing with you now,” said Sandor, and he bent to kiss her. She relaxed into the kiss, he lips gently tugging at his, and he felt her fingers winnow through his hair. He got the blanket open and away from her, which was his goal, so he skimmed his mouth along her jaw and investigated the soft skin behind her ear. She huffed a giggle when he Sandor’s scruff scraped over the hollow above the juncture with her shoulder, so he did it again and she squirmed. Sandor definitely planned on exploiting that. 

 

Sansa gasped when he blew on one hardened nipple, licked it, and then gently tugged it into his mouth. The sensation was absolutely wonderful; it made her insides melt into liquid warmth, so she put her fingers on the back of his neck and urged him on. She was disappointed when Sandor moved away, but he was only shifting to the other, and that was okay. 

 

She jumped when one of his hands moved to her thigh, but he soothed away the shock with a few easy stroked from her knee to her hip. “Let me in,” he mumbled against her lips as he slid his fingers over her mons. She opened her thighs an inch or two, her suspicion clear, but Sandor took it for now. He winnowed his fingers through her curls and cunt lips, just letting her get used to his touch. He went back to her breasts and she sighed and relaxed, gaining him a little more space.  He circled two blunt fingers around her clit, paying attention to the way the muscles low in her belly began to jump in time with his movements. He eased a finger down lower and found the source of her damp heat. 

 

She jumped again- Sandor was getting tired of that- when he slipped a finger inside. He moved it gently, enjoying the feel of her hot, wet-silk sheath, and only wishing a little that it was his cock inside her. 

 

Sansa wiggled a little under his hand. “This is ...nice,” she offered. She rocked experimentally against his finger. “This is good.”

 

With that ‘good’ endorsement ringing in his ears Sandor let himself be drawn down into a kiss. He moved his fingers back to her clit and she rose against him. They lost themselves in a haze then, her in growing arousal and him in a cloud of lust. 

 

She came with a cry and a shudder, her pussy clinching on his fingers and her clit hard against his thumb. When she was still and panting Sandor rolled onto his back and finally took himself in hand. He was too hard and desperate to worry about Sansa watching; his senses had narrowed into throbbing purple  _ need. _

 

“It’s never been like that. Ramsay made me, umm,  _ finish  _ a few times because it helps the seed catch, but it was mean. It didn’t make me see rainbows like this does,” Sansa said, limbs spread eagle.

 

Sandor grunted, not willing to picture Sansa and Ramsay right now. 

 

Sansa noticed what he was doing and sat up, her gaze fixed on his hand and cock. “Doesn’t that hurt?” she asked dubiously. 

 

“It can,” he said, looking at Sansa’s flushed face, the way her hair fell about her shoulders, the shell-pink color of her nipples. 

 

Impulsively he grabbed her hand and dragged it to his arousal. She wrapped her fingers over him and allowed him to drag her hand up and down, up and down. Sandor glanced at her face and saw interest and fascination; she didn’t seem repulsed. It was all over when the pink tip of her tongue swiped over her bottom lip and disappeared. It was too much, and he came all over his belly and their joint hands. 

 

“Does it feel like it does for me?”

 

“How am I supposed to answer that?” Sandor asked, but there wasn’t any attitude in it. He was feeling way too content. 

 

Sansa rinsed off her hand, braided her hair into a clever crown, and slid back into the water. Sandor was already in the pool, and commented, “This is the cleanest I’ve been since- well, this is probably the cleanest I’ve ever been.”

 

They ate carrots and cold rabbit for supper. They were both restless when it got dark so Sansa told Sandor stories of growing up at Winterfell and he tried to think of non-horrifying things he’d seen on his adventures. 

 

The snow finally stopped on the third day. It was time to move on; despite the warmth and the joy they’d shared in the spring, they had a task to complete. The horses were eager to move too, for they’d been hobbled in a cave and unable to stretch for days. They were feeling frisky, and Sansa and Sandor had to stop twice on the road to break up scuffles between a few. 

 

January slipped into February, and there was only one more bad snowstorm to slow Sansa and  Sandor’s progress . 

 

Sandor showed her how to hollow out a snowdrift. She’d been told- every child that grew up in the north was told- that being inside a pile of snow was actually warmer than being outside of it. That turned out to be true, and Sansa and Sandor spent the evening in their tiny crystalline cave. The fire cast yellow and red shadows over the white walls and Sansa made Sandor laugh- actually laugh- by demonstrating the ways that she and Arya had made shadow monsters when they were younger. They’d practice and practice in front of a lamp in their room until they’d mastered all the moves- some of them took three or four hands!- and then they would sneak into the room with Bran and little Rickon and scare the spit out of them. Cat would come running at the little boys’ screams only to find Sansa and Arya rolling on the floor laughing themselves silly. 

 

Sansa untwisted her fingers and fell silent for a moment. “We didn’t get along much. Arya and I just rubbed each other the wrong way. She wanted to be a ranchman; she wanted to go on cattle drives and ride astride and learn to shoot and manage a huge piece of land. Father humored her in this, and I think he kind of liked it. She was a better shot than Robb was, even. I wanted to be a lady. I just wanted to move somewhere warm!”

 

Sansa huffed a little chuckle then, cutting a pointed look at the snow that was their shelter for the night. “I didn’t feel any attachment to the land until I wasn’t on it anymore. Arya always did. She told me that her bones would rest in that land someday, and that the land was already in her. When we got along we were unstoppable, the best friends. I’d love to know what happened to her,” she said sadly. “Because I hope she’s out there. I want her bones to go into her land when she’s old and wrinkled and safe.”

 

Sandor tugged her to him then. He’d never known what to say, not to anyone, and this was  _ Sansa  _ and what he said to her  _ mattered.  _ He still didn’t know what to say to her but now he could soothe her with his hands, distract her with his lips or fingers. She melted into him then, in that way she had of going boneless. Her fingers burrowed under his cloak to fist in the thick material of his shirts. He loved that about her; loved the way she could melt like ice in the spring and yet manage to cling to him so strongly. They didn’t play much that night; the space was too small and Sandor didn’t want to risk rolling either of them into the coals of their fire. They fell asleep facing each other, their lips kiss-swollen.  

 

They rode closer and closer to civilization and Sansa grew more and more excited and anxious. She was anxious about her journey- she was setting herself up for failure, and she knew it. They would need to sneak through two sides of a war and into the home of one of the most powerful women in the country- one of the most powerful  _ people  _ in the country. To make it worse she’d dragged Sandor into this too, and anything that happened to him would be her fault. 

 

Perversely Sansa was also excited- they were getting closer and closer to civilization, and civilization had  _ beds,  _ and maybe one of those beds would hold her and Sandor. He’d promised that their first time would be in a bed with clean sheets, and Sansa kind of wanted it. Certainly not enough to beg, but ...she wasn’t horrified by the idea. He’d never hurt her, not even that time that she’d been taunting him so he’d backed her against a tree and had tugged one of her legs over his shoulders and shoved his head under her skirts and… well. It hadn’t been scary, it had been  _ exciting.  _ She’d come harder that day than any other. 

  
As they rode further and further south Sansa filled with nerves, and, well,  _ anticipation _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the most exciting, but it's something! Chapter 7 has their First Time In a Bed :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They arrive in Cairo  
> First Time in a Bed!

Cairo, Illinois was larger than Sansa had remembered. She’d been in Atlanta with her father and then later with Joffrey and the Lannisters. She had come through Cairo on the way back to Winterfell with the Boltons; looking back the war hadn’t started then and Cairo was probably just your average crossroads town.  Now, though, the city seemed to hum with activity and chaos; even busy Atlanta had seemed more organized than this. 

 

Cairo teemed with people and sights and smells. Riverboats slowly chugged their way into port, the wheels going  _ whumpwhumpwhump  _ while the water splashed. A train whistle blew, long and fierce, before it slowly began to inch down the track in a billow of coal smoke. Men in blue uniforms roamed the street, some carrying gunny sacks of supplies. A boy hawked newspapers on a street corner and men and women bustled over to get a look. The news wasn’t fresh, it had to come this far west by train, but at least it was new. Sansa knew that the first thing everyone would read were the death lists. Some would cry, some would slump with relief. Others were numb by now; the longer they went without news of their loved ones the less they were able to feel anything at all. Sansa understood that.

 

Sansa rode behind the wagon and the younger horses. Sandor steered them into the yard behind an inn and swung off the wagon. “Stay here,” he called to Sansa, and disappeared into the gloom of the building. 

 

He emerged only moments later with a short, red-faced man who was wiping floury hands on a grubby cloth. “Let me see, let me see,” the man muttered. “Which ones drive?” he asked. When Sandor shrugged Sansa pointed to Bran’s horse and one of the guest horses. 

 

They haggled for a moment or two, all the while the innkeeper’s eyes flicked back to Sandor as though he was waiting for the bigger man to take insult. Sandor didn’t care, the horses were Sansa’s family’s, and now hers. It was her idea to sell them, so she could make the sale if she wanted. 

 

The innkeeper bought the draft team, the wagon, Bran’s sweet horse, and the other trained to pull a buggy. He included a night in the inn in exchange for Sandor helping to fix a stall that had been kicked out by an ornery, panicking horse. 

 

Sansa felt a pang as they unloaded the rest of their goods from the wagon. She hardened herself, knowing that greater sacrifices lay ahead. She and a maid of all work carried their belongings upstairs into the inn and the room Sansa and Sandor would share. Sandor followed the wagon to the barn and his task.

 

“I’ll send your husband up when he comes in,” the maid commented as they turned onto an upstairs corridor. Sansa jolted, but  _ of course  _ people would assume they were married, no single woman traveled alone with a man. 

 

“Thank you,” she said distractedly. 

 

The maid left after all the gear was safely upstairs. Sansa pocketed the little room key and headed back to the yard. She needed to make sure the other horses were safely away somewhere. 

 

She found Sandor, Darcy, and Reaper in the barn. Sandor was holding up a solid door while another marked it for hinges. 

 

“Alright, let it down now and I’ll nail the hinges on,” the other man said. 

 

Sandor walked over to Sansa. “Is something wrong?”

 

“No,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure the other horses are safe. Where are the rest?”

 

“In a pen out back. I thought Darcy and Reaper deserved a reward,” he answered gruffly. 

 

Sandor usually seemed embarrassed when Sansa caught him murmuring to his horse or slipping the great black beast a treat. She thought it was sweet; she loved the fact that he cared about the well-being of his mount, but she didn’t want to embarrass him any more. 

 

“You should go in,” Sandor said. “This town is full of soldiers. I’ll come find you for supper tonight.”

 

Sandor was probably right, and she didn’t really feel like arguing just for something to do, so she went back up to the room. 

 

They were in an inn with water to spare, so Sansa asked for a large bucket of water to be brought up to the room. She heated it by the fire til it was almost uncomfortably hot and then she luxuriated in sudsing up a wash rag and getting really, truly clean again. After she was clean and dry Sansa fixed a few loose seams on her clothes, and then… she was out of things to do. The shadows were getting long, but it wasn’t dark yet, so she likely had an hour or two until Sandor came back. 

 

Sansa lay down on the soft, soft bed and thought about the coming night.  _ They would both be in this bed tonight _ , she thought wonderingly, and stretched her hand out to run it over the empty place beside her. Did she want everything that entailed? She thought she did. She could at least try, couldn’t she? She’d be able to tease Sandor over his cocksure stance on her begging him, too. That alone could be worth it. 

 

With a smile on her lips and heat between her thighs Sansa fell asleep in the late-afternoon sun. 

 

Sandor came into the room a little later than he’d expected. Supper was in full swing in the common room downstairs, so at least they’d be able to eat, but, well, now that they actually  _ had  _ a bed he was regretting his- threat? his promise? -to Sansa. Oh, he knew he wanted her; he wanted her until his cock was marked with an exact impression of the fly in his trousers. But… he didn’t want to force her, or guilt her. God help him; he didn’t want Sansa to feel forced into anything else in her fucking life. 

 

It was shadowy in the room the maid had pointed him to, and at first he’d worried that he’d walked into the wrong one. He found a table with a kerosene lamp and lit it. There she was, curled on the bed, her braid draped over the pillow beside her. 

 

Sador washed his face and hands in the still-warm water (she must have had a bath; he wanted one too) and then moved to wake her. 

 

“Sansa,” he said quietly. “C’mon, little bird, time for food.”

 

She blinked up at him and Sandor was reminded of the kittens he would play with as a boy. “Let’s go get food. Then you can come back and sleep.”

 

The common room and the food perked Sansa up. It was crowded with families who were heading west, away from the war. Plenty of soldiers were there too. The young ones, the ones just mustering out, they were boisterous and loud; they were full of talk about how now that they’d come Johnny Reb would go crawling home in no time. 

 

The older soldiers- even the ones technically younger than others- the ones who had seen battle, they were quiet and sent pitying or angry looks towards the others. 

 

Sansa was more interested in her food. One of the maids had brought her a plate of chicken and dumplings and a slab of fresh buttered bread. It was wonderful and warm and neither she nor Sandor had had to catch or clean or cook this food themselves. 

 

Sandor was getting aroused just watching Sansa  _ eat.  _ She’d made a humming, happy noise when she’d bitten into the bread and god, it had been an effort to drag his gaze away from her mouth. 

 

“It’s so  _ good _ ,” she’d sighed. “I can’t remember the last time I had real bread. Biscuits are fine, but fluffy, yeasty bread…” she trailed off and took another bite. Sandor wondered how hard it could be to build a bakery. 

 

They went back to the room eventually when they were both too full to eat anything more. Sandor had a wash (conscious of Sansa’s eyes on him) and Sansa luxuriously combed through her hair. It was tightly wavy from being braided for the last weeks, and it smelled of woman and campfire and pine trees. 

 

She lay down in the bed, comfortable in her nudity- at least with Sandor. He blew out the lamp and came to bed, which suddenly seemed  _ much  _ smaller with his large frame in it. She curled herself around him, one thigh swung over his, and doodled little patterns on his chest. 

 

He held himself still, so she grew bolder. Sansa lay across his chest and pressed her lips to his, dragging her tongue across the seam there. 

 

Sandor cradled her face in a large, rough palm and gently pushed her away. “We don’t have to do this. Please don’t do this for me,” he said. 

 

“I want to do this for me, I think. You’ve been driving me mad,” she admitted, and he could feel her cheek heat in his hand. 

 

“I want this, I want you, so fucking bad,” Sandor said, and his voice came out lower than either of them expected. “But I need you to want it too.”

 

_ There.  _ Sansa felt a little click inside; something hidden had fallen into place for her. This man, despite his boasts and longings, was willing to proceed on her terms. He wanted her active participation, and for that sentiment alone he would have it. 

 

Sansa pressed her lips to his again, and this time she fisted her hands into little claws that dug into the skin of his shoulders.  He grabbed her head then, holding her to him, digging his fingers into mass of silky hair he’d admired for so long. 

 

She  _ hmmmed  _ into his mouth and it vibrated into his brain and heart and cock. He flipped them then, and could make out the shadowed oval of Sansa’s face looking up at him. He kissed her- how could he resist kissing her; he could go on and on kissing her until they starved or burned together- and moved to her neck, her shoulder, her perfect tits. He used his teeth this time, just scraping over her skin, no pain,  _ never  _ pain, and then would kiss each little mark better. Her skin was pinking from her lust and the scruff of his beard and he pulled one lonely little nipple between his lips and used the amount of pressure she liked best. 

 

He continued his slow movement down the sensory feast that was Sansa about her pleasures. She was running her nails through his hair and over his chest (she liked to play with his nipples now too, but he couldn’t afford to get distracted) but Sandor  _ knew  _ when she realized his intent because Sansa started pushing at him instead of pulling. She loved this now, it was her very favorite treat, and so Sandor enjoyed giving it to her. 

 

He did bite her hipbone, hard this time, just to remind her who was on top, but then he unceremoniously parted her pussy lips and licked her soft little cunt. Sansa knew what to expect now so there was no more jumping and flinching. In fact she had started swinging one leg over his shoulder (at least when they were splayed like this) and digging her heel into his back like he was a recalcitrant pony that she was trying to spur on. Sandor liked that she was greedy for this. 

 

He put his left forearm over her hips to keep her steady for his attentions. He was ruthless tonight, worrying her hard little nub without mercy, and when her tummy muscles began to hop and jump under his hand he stopped. He just stopped and laid his head on her thigh. 

 

Sansa whined and lightly kicked the big, warm man who seemed too comfortable by half. “Sandor…”

 

“Yes, princess?” His voice was smokey and low in the dark, his tone innocent and velvet sin in one. 

 

“Do that thing again.”

 

“As you wish, little bird.” 

 

He resumed his activities again, and Sansa came to the edge even more quickly and then he stopped again!

 

“Sandor!” It was an exclamation this time. 

 

He moved to lay next to her, allowing his fingers to run slowly through her soaking wet pussy lips. “Sansa!” he exclaimed back, and Sansa was suddenly reminded of Arya in absolutely the worst way. 

 

“Why are you doing this?” she moaned, dragging a pillow over her face. 

 

The pillow lifted and then Sandor’s lips were next to her ear, his breath warm on her skin. “I told you I’d make you beg for me, princess, and that I’d do it between clean sheets.”

 

Sansa shivered at the dark promise in his voice. “I won’t beg,” she said, but unfortunately her declaration came out far less confident that she wanted. “I won’t.”

 

Sandor started to  _ hum,  _ just casually humming, and he continued to press kisses over her throat and chest as his fingers circled and circled that wondrous spot between her legs. 

 

At some point Sansa growled, she actually growled at him, and her hand snapped out to grab his erection. “I want you,” she said between gritted teeth. “And I want you now, please.”

 

Sandor couldn’t laugh, he absolutely couldn’t because this was everything he’d ever wanted but  _ she still said please. _ She was a lady through and through, and he was going to do his damndest to make her  _ his  _ lady. 

 

He rolled atop her then, kissing her deep, and began to work himself into the hot, wet sheath that fit him eye-crossingly tightly. His fingers kept playing with Sansa’s clit and she stayed wriggly and impatient under him. 

 

Sansa hadn’t expected it to feel this good. If she had known, she probably would have done this ages ago. She wanted to turn around and go back to the hot spring and do this with him until spring came or the war ended, whichever came last. She felt so  _ full _ in the best possible way, which was madness because she hadn’t realized until now that she’d been feeling empty. Sandor  was hot and heavy inside of her, and the friction of his entrance was somehow multiplying the fizzing, magical sensation being evoked by his fingers. 

 

“Not yet,” Sandor growled, taking his fingers away again. She’d begun to make that high, rhythmic keen she’d do just before she came, and since he’d barely gotten his cock in her (as far as it would go, at least) he was NOT ready for this to be over for her.

 

She bucked, protesting, and that caused him to jolt inside her which set off a whole new set of sensations. Sansa rocked her hips intentionally now, the greedy girl, and Sandor let her set the rhythm. They were soon moving together in the dark with the creaking of the bed and the wet sucking of her cunt around his cock. 

 

Sandor’s ears were buzzing and he really, truly suspected that this orgasm, when it came, was going to kill him, but he didn’t care. He was inside Sansa and they were moving and she was crying his name. This wasn’t a whore he’d payed to pretend and this wasn’t a meaningless encounter to make him forget. This was Sansa, and she was coming apart on  _ his  _ dick. 

 

Sansa’s nails dug into his back and her pussy started to clench around his cock. He managed to work a hand between them to her clit so he could work her through her pleasure because his had come for him too, and he was blind and deaf and dead to everything but the pleasure swirling between him and Sansa. 

 

He managed to collapse only half on Sansa. He was still lodged inside her, and he could already feel stickiness over his belly and hips. 

 

Sansa could hear her own blood roaring through her ears and the great exhalations of breath Sandor was huffing into her hair. She felt like she’d died and be reborn in pleasure all at once. She managed to lift a heavy hand to run over Sandor’s back and into his hair. 

 

“In the morning,” she said. “I’m going to eat a whole henhouse full of eggs, and then we’re going to do that again, please.”

 

Sandor half-choked, half-laughed and managed to pull himself up and off the bed. He got a wet cloth, cleaned himself off, and then rinsed the rag before taking it to Sansa. 

 

“I’ll do it,” she said, trying to swat his hand away. 

 

“My mess, my job. Besides, I like looking at you here.” He ran the cloth through her folds, folded it, and continues to swipe gently at the oversensitive flesh until she was clean. 

 

He came back to bed and Sansa curled into him like she always did. “I feel like I could sleep for a week or run all the way back to Winterfell.”

 

“It strikes you like that sometimes,” Sandor yawned. 

 

Sansa kissed the spot of skin under her cheek. “Thank you Sandor,” she mumbled, and then she was gone, all boneless and soft beside him. 

  
_ No, thank you,  _ Sandor thought blearily, and then he tumbled after her into the arms of Morpheus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I actually really like this chapter. 
> 
> I would very much like to thank everyone who has left a comment for me so far! So far this story is my Magnum Opus, and it is SO VALIDATING to get positive feedback. Special shout-out to AvaJune, jbx, and Schave7728! You guys are the best. 
> 
> Next chapter Sansa and Sandor meet Sam and Gilly and have sex on a riverboat. Leobrat edited this for me, and she summed my story up best: Sansan goes to a place, has sex, and does something. Then they go to another place, have more sex, and do another thing. 
> 
> The Author Has No Regrets.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parlor mystery.  
> Sex on a boat!

They woke late, at least for them. The train had rumbled over the tracks several times, and wagons were clattering in and out of the yard. 

 

Sansa didn’t make good on her promise of morning sex: she was deliciously sore and ravenously hungry. They went down and spent a few pennies on boiled eggs and a thick slice of bread for each of them.  

 

“We need to find the livery stable,” Sandor said around a mouthful of egg. Sansa glared at him so he swallowed it all in a ball and continued, “and figure out where to go from there.”

 

Sansa finished the last gulp of her tea- real tea!- and scooched off the stool. “Shall we ask the innkeeper where the stables are?” 

 

He was behind the bar collecting dishes. The innkeeper ran a calculating eye over Sandor. “It’s off River Road. Three blocks east and one block south. Right by the docks.”

 

Sandor thanked the man and made to move away when he said, “You’ll get the best price if you take ‘em south. Memphis traders are paying up to twelve dollars a head for good horseflesh.”

 

One of the men in union blue sitting at the bar glared at the innkeeper and said, “We’re fighting those bastards.”

 

The innkeeper shrugged. “Out here we gotta think of ourselves.”

 

“What do you think?” Sansa asked Sandor when they’d stepped out of the inn. 

 

“Your horses, so it’s up to you,” Sandor said, steering Sansa around a group of men heatedly discussing something on the wooden walkway. 

 

“Should we go see what the man at the livery is offering?” Sansa suggested. 

 

“Fine with me,” he replied.

 

“Good. There’s another stop I’d like to make on the way back.” 

 

Sandor didn’t know what kind of supplies she’d decided she’d needed, but he didn’t really care. It was her money, but really, Sandor was fully prepared to spend this entire trip trying to fulfill her every wish. That was the  _ point  _ of the trip.  

 

The livery stable in Cairo was only offering six dollar a head for healthy riding horses. “That’s half what they’re going for in Memphis,” said Sansa, worrying her bottom lip as they walked back. 

 

“Oh, I want to duck in here,” she said, and stepped through the door of a little shop they were passing. Sandor saw that it was the apothecary and went in after her. She was already at the counter and talking to the woman behind it, so Sandor was content to stand by the door and breathe in the smell of lavender and mustard plasters. 

 

Sansa was quickly done and came back to him. They left the shop and picked up their conversation. “The innkeeper could have been lying, or be wrong,” said Sandor.

 

“Why would he lie? And he could be wrong, but the prices aren’t likely to be any worse, are they?”

 

“How would we get eight horses to Memphis?” Sandor said. This was the real question. 

 

“We could go on a riverboat,” Sansa replied. 

 

Sandor frowned. “Those are expensive. And we’d likely have to pay for the horses to go too.” 

 

“Let’s go see,” Sansa said. “I’ve always wanted to ride one,” she confided to the man walking beside her. 

 

Sometimes Sandor forgot how young Sansa really was. Now was not one of those times. 

 

They learned that two of the bigger steamboats were heading back to Memphis after this stop. One was asking far too money for passage, she they walked down the docks and looked for the other. It was called the  _ Sultana,  _ and they were told to look for the captain and his wife, Sam and Gilly Tarley. 

 

The found the boat easily enough. Men were off-loading cargo, and Sandor called to one, “Do you know where your captain is?”

 

“With the harbour master!” the sailor called back. 

 

Sandor and Sansa continued along the docks. Small stalls lined the walkways selling everything from fish to hot sausages to hats and gloves. The area was still chaotic, full of moving bodies and bobbing boats and yelling people, but at least this seemed to have some organization to it. Cargo was either coming off the boats or going on. People were looking for their friends and families or they were conducting business. 

 

The Harbour Master’s office was located along the very edge of the dockyards by the Mississippi River. Sandor and Sansa sat on the bench outside the building and hoped that they hadn’t missed the couple they sought. 

 

“You think I should sell the horses here, don’t you?” Sansa said, her fingers worrying the material of her skirts again. 

 

“I guess- I don’t know. Money can smooth away a lot of worries,” he said. “I just don’t know how to get eight horses from here to Memphis without spending everything you’ve got left.”

 

Sansa was quiet. Once upon a time she would have bounced back and said that she was sure everything would work out; that this couple would cut them the deal they needed and things would be fine. She couldn’t quite bring herself to  _ believe  _ it now, but she still hoped. 

 

After a few minutes- maybe fifteen- a man and a woman walked out of the office. The man was short, maybe even slightly shorter than Sansa, with a round, happy-looking face. The woman was even smaller, and she was carrying a baby. 

 

“Hello. Are you the Tarleys?” Sansa asked, rising from the bench

 

The man nodded. “I’m Samwell, and this is my wife Gilly with Young Sam. What can I do for you today?” 

 

Mr. Tarley had eyed Sandor, but hadn’t commented on his size or his scars. That was always a good sign. 

 

“I’m Sansa, and this is my husband, Sandor. We were hoping to book passage- or work out a deal for passage- to Memphis,” Sansa said. She hoped the words hadn’t come all out in a rush. She hadn’t intended to use the word ‘husband’, but it made the most sense. This decent couple wouldn’t take a loose woman on board.

 

“Is it just the two of you?” asked Mr. Tarley. 

 

“No, we, umm, have eight horses,” Sansa replied. “We’re going south to try selling them.”

 

“They’d get a better price down there, wouldn’t they?” Mr. Tarley asked his wife. 

 

Mrs. Tarley nodded and said, “Oh yes. Do we have that many stalls available?” 

 

Her husband shrugged. “I think so. We don’t have any other passengers with horses yet.” He turned to Sandor then. “Could you act as a kind of peacekeeper after dinner? The men who come with us often assume that we’re a floating gaming house like some other boats on this river. I’m not particularly effective at scaring men into good behavior.” He finished this statement sheepishly. “It would just be a dollar for the horses if you could watch the common room.”

 

Sandor was still reeling over Sansa calling him her husband. Did she assume that that was what he wanted? Was that what he wanted? He also wasn’t happy about being asked to babysit a load of drunken soldiers, but Sandor knew what this meant to Sansa and it was only for one night- was it only for one night? “How long does it take to get to Memphis from here?” he asked. 

 

“We leave this evening and should get there at lunchtime tomorrow.” Sam Tarley was still smiling, and Sandor rather hated him for that. 

 

“I can do that,” Sandor said. 

 

“We have some food left for the horses, plenty for one night, so that won’t be any trouble,” Sansa said. 

 

Sandor could tell that she was trying to contain her enthusiasm and was failing. 

 

“There’s always work to be done around breakfast time. Because we’re leaving this evening we expect the passengers to see to their own suppers,” Gilly said. “We leave around six, so if the two of you could bring the horses and your luggage in plenty of time to see them aboard, I would sure appreciate it.

 

Sandor thought about the husband comment the rest of the afternoon. He wasn’t  _ mad  _ about it, but it …bothered him. He just wasn’t sure what she meant. Was she just trying to be less noticeable? Was she thinking that she  _ owed  _ him her intimate favors? Or could she possibly want to marry him?

 

Thankfully getting all of the horses to walk up onto a ship and then down a ramp into a dark, windowless “stable,” was dangerous and time consuming enough to draw Sandor out of his brood. 

 

After the horses were aboard and settled Sandor ducked into their cabin to wash (Sansa had already neatly arranged their bags) and went to look for Sansa. She’d said that she was going to help in the parlor with Gilly, which was nice. Maybe she could spend some time with him while he was on “guard duty”. Sandor had seen the other passengers, and he anticipated a quiet night. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what he got.

 

Sansa was working in the lounge area of the boat with Gilly and Sandor when the man dropped dead, foam flecking his lips. 

 

The large room was set up much like the reception area of the Grand Hotel in Atlanta. It had plush curtains over the little round windows and buttery warm light from kerosene sconces affixed to the lacquered wood walls. A shining wood bar had fixtures of shining brass, and the liquor shelf had a neat little brass railing that held the bottles still against the rocking of the boat. 

 

There were a dozen or so men in the room. Five sat around a table with a pack of cards. The others were scattered in ones and twos, most around the fire with a book or a newspaper. Sansa had been washing glasses at the bar while Gilly dusted the fixtures. Sandor had been sitting in the corner with a bored look on his face, and Sansa could almost  _ hear  _ his thoughts:  _ If I can earn a free ride on a steamboat just by watching a bunch of cunts play cards I could live on one of these things for the rest of my natural life.  _

 

That’s when there was a great thump, a jingle of coins, and the shouting began.

 

“Hey! He put something in his drink!” a bowler hat-wearing man shouted, pointing a finger across the now-tipped table. 

 

“I did not,” the accused man said calmly.

 

“I saw you,” Bowler Hat protested. “It was  _ his-”  _ here the finger swung to another man- “drink,” he finished lamely. 

 

That was because the man in question had just crumpled to the floor like his knees had been removed. He made a soft, wet sound and little bit of foam appeared on his lips. After one last twitch he lay still, his eyes going just  _ slightly  _ out of focus. 

 

Sandor had joined the group seconds after the table had been flipped. He had a hand on the shoulder of the accused, and when the other man crumpled to the floor Sandor tightened his grip. He methodically used the man’s own belt to bind his hands firmly behind his back. While one man kneeled quietly over his dead friend and others scrambled to pick coins off the floor Sandor went through the man’s pockets. He turned out a billfold, a letter, a pocket watch, a few small coins, and a comb.

 

Sam had been summoned to the room by Gilly, and he waded into the chaos with a nervous smile. “What happened here?” he asked Sandor, but everyone answered him at once. 

 

“Quiet!” Sandor finally bellowed. A man was dead on his watch, and that really hadn’t put him in the best mood. He also elected to ignore Mr. Tarley.

 

“You!” Sandor barked, gesturing to Bowler Hat. “What did you see?”

 

“Esau here, he was digging around in his coat lookin’ for the ante, right?” Bowler Hat explained, gesturing towards the dead man Gilly had covered with a table cloth. And that one- can’t remember his name- starts tinkering with his winnings and leans over and puts something in Esau’s whiskey. It fizzed, I saw it.”

 

As one the group looked at the empty glasses and puddle of mingled spirits on the carpet. 

 

“I saw it fizz a little,” a thin man corroborated. “But I didn’t see who did it. M’name’s Jacobson.”

 

_ What would Tywin have done in a situation like this?  _ “All of you, turn out your pockets,” Sandor commanded, still keeping an eye on the bound suspect. “Mr. Tarley, please make sure none of these twats forget anything.” 

 

Samwell Tarley’s ears flushed at Sandor’s language but he did as he was asked.

 

Sansa watched in fascinated curiosity as pencils, combs, tobacco pouches, pipes, snuff boxes, letters, coins, peppermints, a pair of ladies drawers, watches, and notebooks rained onto the table. Sam and Sandor examined each one, though Sandor was starting to get frustrated.  _ I’m not even looking for something, I’m looking for a place where something just might have been!” _

 

Gilly joined in the search, and one by one each man had his belongings returned to him. The inspection had taken hours, and the men were getting more and more hungover and more and more frustrated. 

 

Sandor sorted through the remaining belongings one last time. There was a peppermint wrapper among the other personal detritus, and Sandor now noticed a bit of powder on it. Some candies did go to powder when crushed, but this didn’t look right.

 

“Mrs. Tarley, could I have a small amount of whiskey?” Sandor asked. 

 

Gilly looked confused but did as he asked. Sandor said, “Thank you, ma’am. We know the poison fizzed a little, right? I just want to see if this does the same thing.” 

 

Sandor put two fingers in the whiskey and hung them over the wrapper until a drop of the alcohol fell. It fizzed wildly for a second and then subsided. The  _ hisss  _ of gaseous bubbles was loud in the shadowed room. 

 

“Who’s was this?” Sandor asked the room at large. 

 

Slowly the other card players turned to look at the man in the ugly bowler hat; the one who had been so quick to accuse the now-bound man. 

~~~

The other men had been dismissed and Sandor had taken off the shirt Sansa had made for him. His battered cotton shirt was underneath, and he methodically rolled up the sleeves without looking at the man now strapped to a sturdy dining chair.    
  
“What’s your name?” Sandor asked, checking the ties that bound the man’s arms to the back of the chair and his legs to the rungs. 

 

Bowler Hat grunted. “I knew a man once,” Sandor commented conversationally. “That collected the names of the men he killed. It was like, well, a little prayer. Me, I don’t give a fuck.” 

 

Sandor gut punched the man, who wheezed and hung for a moment against his bonds. “Name?”

 

“It said Travis Smith on the manifesto where he signed,” said Sam Tarley helpfully. 

 

Sandor gave the short, round man a look of total disbelief. “You think he actually gave you his real name? You’re a bigger cunt than he is!”

 

Sam looked shocked, and Sandor got back to work. He broke a finger here, an ankle there, and might have accidentally twisted a few of these broken bones a time or two, but in the end he managed to piece together the man’s journey onto the  _ Sultana. _

 

Bowler Hat’s name was actually Trevor Dalt. He’d come looking for this man- a Lannister man- as payment to a woman named Ellaria Sand. She was a witch-woman who lived with her three daughters and had a deep (and according to Trevor, unnatural) knowledge of poisons. Ellaria had saved Trevor’s daughter when she’d been bitten by a snake, and she had requested a life. He hadn’t know what poison he’d been given; he’d been given a name, a location, and a description of his victim.

 

That was all the information Sandor wanted. “You deal with him,” he said to Sam Tarley. Sandor grabbed his things and took Sansa’s hand and they walked out of the common rooms and down into the berthing area of the boat. 

 

“I’m sorry you saw that,” said Sandor as they stepped into their room. 

 

“I’m not,” said Sansa, and she turned and grabbed Sandor and pulled him down and  _ kissed  _ him with all the lust for his competence, his tanned bare arms, his single-minded determination, and yes, for his capacity for violence. He wanted  _ her,  _ Sansa Stark, perennial lady, and oh, she wanted him. 

 

Sandor was confused by Sansa’s sudden attentions, but he surely wasn’t going to push her away. When she said  _ harder  _ against his lips his mind went totally blank for a heartbeat before roaring back to life. He yanked Sansa tight against him, holder her up with a hand under her arse and his arm around her back. He pressed her to the wall then, which gave him a hand he could use to touch her breasts and her face. She was chanting  _ yes yes yes  _  and Sandor got drunk on those yeses. He had to be in her now, get in her now or die, and so he dropped her and spun her around all in one motion. He realized he couldn't get her out of her smallclothes and get his cock out of his trousers at the same time so he unlaced his breeches and was getting ready to divest Sansa of everything she wore when she yelped  _ no!  _ and scampered away from him. 

 

“What?” Sandor asked. He was left standing with his cock out and his thoughts totally clouded with lust. 

 

“Not like that. I can’t… like that.”

 

“Like what?” Sandor asked, still totally bewildered. 

 

“From behind. Like a horse. Or dogs.” Sansa’s face went hard at that last comparison. She took a deep breath. Sansa owed an explanation to Sandor, this huge, scowling man who had yet to hurt her or deny her anything. 

 

“When Ramsay would-” she looked for a euphemism- “ _ take  _ me like that, he would often ‘accidentally’ slip out of me and back into my arse. He buggered me, Sandor. And it hurt and I bled every time.”

 

She was standing by their tiny little bunk twisting her fingers again. Sandor was seeing red, deep, throbbing red. He had nothing to comfort himself with; Ramsay was already dead and so for no mortal man had found a way to bring a man back from death. The fact that one day Sandor would see Ramsay in hell, and could extract his revenge for eternity, was at this moment a cold comfort. 

 

“I just, I like to be able to see you,” Sansa said in a small voice, and that wiped away his anger. 

 

“Then, little bird, you can see me as much as you like.” 

 

Sandor moved to Sansa and started to undress her as gently as he could. His fingers were large and blunt and not made for ladies’ buttons or soft, thin underlinens but he tried.  

 

She kissed him shyly and he tried to come up with a way to tell her that she shouldn’t feel any shame, that the shame was all to be heaped on Ramsay’s head. Sandor wasn’t a man of words, and right now he didn’t have any to offer her, so he tried to show her with his lips and palms and body.

 

There wasn’t an inch of Sansa he didn’t kiss, there wasn’t a piece of skin, no matter how small, that he didn’t caress. The boat had a gentle rocking motion as it bobbed and turned through the currents, and Sandor matched his thrusts to those rocks. It was the slowest and quietest sex he’d ever had, but it was still incredibly- and unexpectedly- intense. Each little touch seemed amplified, and each inch of friction felt deeply and erotically. Sansa looked up at him and touched him, little butterfly caresses over his cheeks (even the one ravaged by his brother) and nose and eyelids and neck and chest. 

 

She came apart slowly, still with the rocking of the vessel. Her previous orgasms had come upon her like fireworks, all sudden heat and dazzle, but this came in great lazy waves, a flower opening for the sun. 

 

Her pleasure drug Sandor over his own edge. He could have survived the tight spasms of her cunny, but it was the fact that she looked at him this time, that he could  _ see  _ the pleasure take her- well. It was almost enough to make a man find religion. 

 

He fell asleep curled around Sansa in their tiny bed. HIs last thought was that she’d called him her husband, and that sometime- in the next eighty years or so- he may get brave enough to call her his wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just shaking my head at this chapter- I think I was going to take this in a totally different direction, but you know what, I'm too lazy to rewrite this chapter. Oh well. 
> 
> Thank you to all who have stuck with me this far! 
> 
> Next chapter is a busy one- Sansa and Sandor are captured, given jobs, and sent on a march. We get to meet Davos!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conscription.  
> Davos!  
> Battlefield sex.

Sansa liked Memphis; it seemed to be a more genteel version of Atlanta. The port area was organized and clean, and the streets were laid out in a spacious grid. Some of Atlanta’s roads were so narrow that carts couldn’t pass each other, but these had enough space for two-way traffic and pedestrians. Before they took the horses to sell Sansa had hugged Gilly and Sam had shaken Sandor’s hand. 

 

“Look us up when you decide to head home,” the smaller man had said. 

 

“Please do,” Gilly had said to Sansa. 

 

“I hope we can,” Sansa had replied, and then they were off into Memphis.

 

The wide streets helped Sansa and Sandor get the remaining horses down to the livery stable. They were going for ten to twelve dollars a piece, and Sansa ended up with more money than she’d seen in her life. They gave the man back five cents to watch their personal horses overnight, and Sandor hurried Sansa into a room in a hotel on Main Street. 

 

“Stay here, I’ll get food,” he said. Clearly he was nervous about having all of this money too. He came back with food and a knife for Sansa, one with a sheath she could use to strap it to her thigh or ankle up under her skirts. (Sandor found this idea especially erotic, and he started wondering what else ladies had hidden under their skirts.

 

Sansa spent most of the night sewing little pockets onto her saddlebags, Sandor’s bags, and into the hems of their cloaks and coats. If someone knew to look for the coins the money would be found, but it would at least survive a quick search.

 

The next morning Sandor took Sansa to a bakery he’d seen the previous day.  They sat at a little table by the window and sipped tea (Sandor wasn’t fond of it, but he could drink it if coffee wasn’t available). Sansa ate her sticky bun in neat little pieces, whereas Sandor had consumed two in about as many bites. The early morning sun caught the hairs around Sansa’s face and gave her whole body a golden glow. 

 

When she looked up and innocently licked a bit of sugar off the tip of one finger Sandor felt himself go rock hard. 

 

They rode out of Memphis and made better time without the other horses. The days were also slightly longer now, which meant they could safely ride further into the evening. 

 

Sandor had looked at one of the Tarley’s maps before they’d left the boat. He and Sansa should be able to ride in a straight line southeast and end up right in Atlanta. He guessed that it would take about five weeks of heavy riding and closer to two months if they were diverted by bad weather or the war. 

 

Unfortunately they only made it about a week. 

 

Sandor and Sansa typically stopped during the warmest part of the day to eat something and give the horses a drink and a rest. They were tightening the girths and preparing to leave again when Sandor whispered, “Freeze.”

 

Sansa stopped what she was doing and stared at Sandor. He jerked his head towards the stream and Sansa strained her ears to hear. She thought she heard a voice or two, and widened her eyes at Sandor.  _ What do we do? _

 

He put a finger to his lips. Clearly he was hoping that the group would move on and leave them be.

 

In moments they heard the crunching of footsteps over leaves and fallen sticks. Sandor drew his gun and stepped away from Reaper. Sansa didn’t know what to do. Seconds later three men in grey rode into Sansa and Sandor’s little clearing.

 

“Hey there,” said one in captain’s filigree. “Where you headed?”

 

Sandor shrugged. “We’re trying to find family in Atlanta. The house was burned down at home; so we’ve got no where else to go.”

 

One of the soldier’s horses shifted a little bit, impatient to be going. “Those are nice mounts,” he commented. “Strange that they weren’t taken when your fields were burned. Our glorious cause needs horses like that.”

 

Sandor sighed, raised his pistol, and shot the one that had commented on the horses in one smooth motion. 

 

The dead man fell out of his saddle which spooked the other horses. While the two remaining soldiers tried to get to their own guns and get their horses under control Sandor moved to one and wrenched him bodily from the saddle. He had to duck because the one left mounted had taken a revolver from his sash and fired at Sandor. Sandor ran towards the horse, his own gun raised, and fired at the officer. 

 

He hit the horse, which staggered and fell. Sansa didn’t see what happened next, because the officer that Sandor had dismounted was up and aiming at Sandor’s back. Sansa stepped out from behind her tree, yanked the knife from it’s place at her ankle, and threw herself on the soldier. 

 

It only worked because she surprised him, but the important thing was that it worked. She thrust the knife into the man’s throat and then did it again, watching in morbid fascination as blood burbled from the holes in his neck as well as his from between his lips. 

 

“He’s done, Sansa,” said Sandor eventually. SHe turned towards him and saw him crouched by the horse he’d shot. It was thrashing it’s legs but not getting up. Sandor touched its cheek, whispering to it, before stepping back and putting a bullet into its brain. 

 

“We need to go,” he said urgently. They were both covered in blood, but apparently there was no time to try to fix that. “If anyone is nearby they’ll have heard that.”

 

Sure enough Sansa and Sandor had barely mounted up and ridden out of the clearing when they ran into a small group of union soldiers. There were a dozen total, and they took in the blood spatters with raised eyebrows. One man nudged his mount forward. “I’m Captain Blackwater. We heard the gunshots and were headed over to see what was going on. Now, I expect you want to say something like, “This isn’t what it looks like.” Since I suspect that would be a bald-faced lie, I would prefer it if you either told the truth or made up a really entertaining whopper of a fib.”

 

Sandor opted for a version of the truth. “Three confederate officers came across us while we were resting. They liked the look of our horses, and we didn’t want to give them over. We fought, we won.”

 

Blackwater eyeballed them. “We’ve heard tales of a half-faced giant who fights with the strength of three men. This man was called Clegane, and he fought for the Confederacy.”

 

“Well clearly I’m not anymore,” Sandor snarled. 

 

“He doesn’t. I’m Sansa Stark, and we didn’t do anything wrong.” 

 

Captain Blackwater gave them a long look. 

 

“You,” he said to one of his men. “Ride ahead and report back.” The man moved off and Bronn gazed at Sandor again. 

 

“I reckon this one’s above my pay grade,” he finally said. “A Confederate soldier sharing my enthusiasm for dead Confederates is unusual. I’m not going to be the man who cocked this up- excuse my French- so I’d prefer if you’d come with me.” 

 

The scout came back. “Just like they said, he reported. 

“We’ll come,” said Sandor. 

 

They rode with the union men for three days. It was dark when they finally reached their destination- some fort in Chattanooga, according to Bronn. For an officer he didn’t seem particularly concerned about rank, he was perfectly fine with Sansa and Sandor calling him  _ Bronn  _ rather than Captain. 

 

“Lieutenant General Targaryen, I think this one’s for you,” said Bronn, pushing open the door to the office. 

 

A slim man with white blonde hair was bent over a desk stacked high with paperwork and folded maps. 

 

“Captain Blackwater,” he said, accepting Bronn’s salute. 

 

Bronn relayed his portion of the story as well as what he’d been told by Sandor and Sansa. 

 

“Thank you, Captain,” Targaryen said. “You’re dismissed. Send in Tyrion.”

 

“Tyrion?” asked Sansa, perking up. “Tyrion Lannister?”

 

Targaryen eyed her. “You know him?”

  
“I was engaged to his nephew. I met him in Georgia,” said Sansa. 

A moment later the door opened and Tyrion walked in. He wasn’t in the finery Sansa had associated with him, but neither was he in a uniform. 

 

“Miss Sansa,” he said, surprised. What are you doing here?”

 

Targaryen looked down at the much shorter man. “You do know her?”

 

“I do indeed, and the man as well, though I don’t know how they got here.” 

 

Sandor was asked to repeat the story they’d told to Bronn. He do so, and Sansa could tell his patience was thin. When he’d recounted their (slightly edited) version of events Targaryen sat in thought gazing out the darkened window of his cramped office. 

 

“I’ll have someone escort you to your rooms,” he said. “It’s late, and I’ll need time to verify your story.”

 

He stood, and an aide opened the office door. Sandor was escorted to a tiny room at one end of the low building, and Sansa was taken to another at the opposite end. A pitcher of water had been drawn for her, and Sansa’s face was still damp from her ablutions when she fell asleep. 

 

Sansa and Sandor were brought back in front of Lieutenant General Targaryen again in the morning. Sansa had been finishing a cup of coffee (with real cream!) when the guard had come to escort to the office. 

 

Sandor was already in the little room when she’d arrived, and Lt. Gen. Targaryen was standing beside his desk. 

 

“Miss Stark,” said Daniel Targaryen nodding to her. “Your identity has been verified by a reliable source. I am choosing to believe the rest of your story. You are free to go, though I would warn you that any further forays south will be on your own head.’

 

“As for you, Mr. Sandor Clegane, no one needed to verify  _ your _ identity for us.” 

 

Targaryen glanced down at a paper handed to him by Tyrion Lannister. “You served the Lannisters personally for years before the war started. You were then given command of the 3rd Regiment, a cavalry unit you managed to lead to some great effect. And then you claim to have deserted at Bull Run, which coincides with the cessation of the rumors concerning your exploits.”

 

Targaryen took a seat, lounging back in his chair and looking at Sandor overtop steepled fingers. “I’m sure you understand that what with the draft and you being a confederate sympathizer we cannot just let you walk out of here a free man.” He passed a folded paper across the desk to Sandor. “You’ll find that’s your commission. You’ve been attached to Sherman’s Army of Tennessee, and you’ll see that we’ve promoted you to Major. That’s mostly a joke, because frankly both armies are out of money, so it doesn’t much matter what rank you are, we’re all paid the same.”

 

Sandor didn’t look at either the paper or Sansa. “Fine,” he growled. “But I’ll be keeping my horse.” 

 

Targaryen glanced over at “the Little Colonel”, who nodded. “Incidentally, we’d already planned on that, given as he’s bucked off everyone who’s tried to ride him and managed to break the leg of the groom that brought him his breakfast. You’ll check in with Sherman tonight. A train is leaving for Chattanooga in an hour, and you and your horse will be on it.”

 

“So I’m truly free to go where I want?” Sansa asked, interrupting. 

 

“I believe I did say that, Miss Stark,” Targaryen replied coolly. 

 

“Good.” Sansa nodded. “I’ll be going with him.” 

 

Sandor stood then and half-dragged Sansa out of the room. 

 

Targaryen looked down at his aide-de-camp, a man underestimated by most. “She’s an idiot.”

 

Tyrion shook his head. “Her father may have qualified as such at the end, but I have higher hopes for this one.”

 

~~~

 

“What are you about, telling them that you’re coming with me? You’re done. We got caught. Take your money and go back home and pay someone to rebuild for you.”

 

“We aren’t done,” said Sansa, confused and hurt. “Cersei is still alive, we can go to Atlanta.”

 

All of the fear and worry inside Sandor bubbled to the surface and came pouring out of his mouth. “Go home, Sansa. This isn’t the place for you, a battlefield is the last fucking place you should be.”

 

Sandor looked at him, a long stare of those clear blue eyes. She had her emotionless, impassive mask on, and Sandor wished he knew what she was thinking. Finally she turned and began striding purposefully down the corridor. 

“Where are you going?”  

 

“I told you. I have a train to catch and a space to book for my horse.” She marched into her room, returned in seconds with her cloak and reticule, and marched right past Sandor.

 

As Sandor discovered, Sansa was completely serious. He led  Reaper to a cattle car as the late afternoon light stretched over the railway yard. Sansa’s Dacy was already inside, milling about in the hay with several other horses. Sandor scowled, his already tempestuous mood (how had he ended up back here, back in the fighting, back in the stupid war that was being fought without reason) darkening even further. He found Sansa in the officer’s car with some other officer’s wife. They were giggling over something Captain Blackwater had said, and Sandor’s stomach burned with rage and irritation. 

 

He stepped up into the railway carriage (his new trousers of Union blue were too short, of course they were too short, all of the laces in his boots were visible when he stepped up like that) and asked if he and Sansa had time to take a walk before the train departed. 

 

“Five minutes,” was the reply grunted to him by one of the other men, so he grabbed Sansa’s hand and tugged her into the nominal privacy afforded by an alley between two storage sheds. 

 

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he growled, barely containing the impulse to rage at her. “You’re riding into  _ war. _ There won’t be handsome officers telling jokes; there will only be handsome officers bleeding at your feet or trying to rape you. There won’t be campfires at night, and if there are you’ll have to worry about the enemy shooting at the light. It’s going to be death and destruction and hunger, and you’re coming out of some, some- I don’t know, idiotic need for fucking revenge!”

 

Sansa blinked once, slowly, and then one pretty auburn eyebrow rose like the wrath of gods. 

 

“I’m choosing,” she said slowly and clearly, as though she was talking to a village imbecile or a very small child, “to take that comment as a symptom of your fear for me. Thank you for your concern, Sandor, but I believe that I need to remind you of a few things. Firstly, if I return home to Winterfell now I’d probably never make it home. I have to go through the war in either direction, and it’s never safe for a woman alone. Secondly, were I to make it home, it would be to sit alone and chop wood and learn to set snares. If I didn’t starve I would die of boredom. I’d rather take my chances with the battlefield.”

 

She didn’t know what she way saying. Sandor knew he’d fucked this up and fucked it up badly, but all he could hear above the rush of blood in his ears was that  _ she had no idea what she was walking into.  _

 

“Lastly,” Sansa continued, and now her voice rose and her eyes snapped sparks, “how dare you,  _ you  _ Sandor, of all people, criticize my need for revenge. You told me once that hate was as good as anything to keep a man going, do you remember? Well, the principle stands true for women, too.” 

 

Sansa walked back to the officer’s car of the train, making sure to ‘accidentally’ step on Sandor’s foot along the way. 

 

Sansa and the other lady- a Miss Jeyne Poole- had fallen asleep quickly once the train left the station. They were leaned against each other on one of the padded bench seats that lined the car, looking out of place among the canteens and rifles and ammo pouches. 

 

Sandor glances at Sansa and then back out the window. He caught Bronn’s (Captain Blackwater had jovially asked to be called Bronn as he passed a flask of rum around the car) eye, and the other man nodded towards the ladies.

 

“You’ve got it bad for that one,” he said in a low voice.

 

Sandor didn’t say anything. Confirming it would be embarrassing, lying would be pointless. 

 

“S’alright,” Bronn continued, leaning back in his seat and taking another nip from his flask. “I’ve got a beauty waiting for me, too. Her name’s Margaery Tyrell, and she’s the cleverest thing in the states. Prettiest, too,” he added as an afterthought. 

 

“Yep, she grew up on a giant horse farm in Maryland. ‘Highgarden’ they called it. Now what rich cunt came up with the idea to call a horse farm Highgarden? She’s in Texas with her brother now, nice and safe from the war. When it’s all over we’re gonna get married, and I’ll get her dowry too. I fancy me a castle, I do.”

 

Sandor tuned out the rest of the man’s heartsick monologue. 

 

“What about you? Getting hitched after the war?”

 

Sandor looked at Sansa and wondered if she’d have him. “I hope so,” he said in a moment of brutal honesty. 

 

The train rocked on, carrying them south, and eventually everyone inside slept, dreaming of the things that might come.

 

~~~ 

 

Chattanooga smelled of shit and blood.  A field hospital had been set up on a side street beside the train depot, and as the train passengers disembarked they were met with the reality of war. Men lay in bloody, threadbare clothes. Some moved, some did not, and all had flies buzzing over their bodies. 

 

“Stinks, don’t it,” said Bronn as Sansa and Jeyne froze in horror. “Men shit themselves when they die. Doesn’t help the atmosphere, does it?”

 

Sandor shoved Bronn out of his way and herded the ladies towards what he assumed to be the command post of the Chattanooga garrison. He’d get Bronn back for that comment, but at the same time, Sandor was perversely glad Sansa had seen the results of this bloody stupid infernal war. He could turn her around and put her on a train north and she’d be out of it. 

 

The entire group found Sherman’s command tent and was instructed to wait outside. Each officer was introduced in turn and their letters of commission were inspected. Sandor was squinted at a moment or two longer than the others by the thin man with truly impressive sideburns that Sansa assumed was General Sherman. 

 

“The ladies?” he barked when introductions were through, managing somehow to turn turn two words into a question with depth. 

 

Bronn introduced the two women, and they too were given that piercing stare. “I assume you’re not here to serve as… washer women,” he said finally. 

 

Sansa would wash if it meant staying near Sandor and working her way closer to Cersei, but she shook her head. Something in Sherman’s tone warned her that ‘no’ was the only correct answer. 

 

“Can you nurse?” he snapped. 

 

“I can stitch wounds, and I have some knowledge of herbs and teas. Only simple ones,” Sansa hurried to clarify. It was true- on a remote Montana ranch, everyone knew rudimentary wound care, and Sansa had trained to be the lady of another ranch someday. She’d need to know the cures for common ailments. 

 

Jeyne just nodded beside Sansa, the other girl’s speech apparently knocked out of her by nerves. 

 

“Stitching is what we need the most,” Sherman said. “You two,” he jerked his chin towards Jeyne and Sansa. “Report to Dr. Seaworthy.”

 

“You lot,” Sherman continued, gesturing to the milling group of officers, “stay here.” 

 

Sansa could feel Sandor’s glare boring a hole between her shoulders as she left the room. 

 

Sansa and Jeyne walked side by side, their horses on the outside of their mistresses. It felt safer that way. Sansa supposed that they both thought that, if frightened, they’d be able to hide between the other. That thought  _ almost  _ brought a smile to her face.

 

They waded through the small sea of wounded men to a tent spattered with substances Sansa didn’t investigate too closely. 

 

They weren’t sure if they should go in or not, so they hovered outside, breathing through their mouths. 

 

A man in dark blue stepped out, his shirtsleeves rolled high above his elbow. He was wiping his bloody hands on an even bloodier rag, and Sansa had to jerk her eyes up to his face.    
“Bring in the next one,” he said to two thin soldiers sitting on a bench by one of the railway buildings. The grabbed a stretcher and headed towards one of the men on the ground. 

 

“Pardon me, sir,” said Sansa. “Are you Dr. Seaworthy? We’ve been sent by General Sherman to act as nurses.”

 

The man-presumably the doctor- looked them up and down with a sceptical expression. “Are you on the run? Why would pam- ah, ladies like you come to a field hospital of your own volition?”

 

He was an indeterminate age- forty five? fifty five?- with a close-cropped grey beard, short hair, and one of the broadest Scots accents Sansa had ever heard. 

 

“We’re here for reasons that are our own,” Sansa said, annoyed with the way this man was looking at her. He had no idea of the things she’d already survived. How dare he judge her as lacking?”

 

“I assume, again, that you are the doctor?”

 

“Aye, I’m the bloody doctor. I have the highest survival rate in this army or any other, and so they send me to bloody Sherman for my sins. I’ve only lived to a ripe old age, but do they listen to me? No.”

 

Sansa wasn’t sure how to react to that little rant, so she elected to ignore it. “I’m Sansa Stark, and this is Jeyne Poole,” Sansa said, indicating the now-trembling other girl. 

 

“Davos Seaworthy,” said the doctor. “Don’t care what you call me as long as you can do the job. If you’re truly to act as my nurses, you’d best put your horses up and get started today.”

 

Sansa and Jeyne found the mobile corral holding horses as thin and scarred as the soldiers Sansa had seen.  They left their saddlebags outside the tent and stepped inside to find the doctor.

 

Seaworthy  gave them each a thick, coated canvas apron that wrapped most of the way around them. Jeyne fainted during the first operation she watched, and so she was sent out of the tent with one of the litter bearers. “Tell her the triage process!” Davos shouted after her without even a pause as he sawed through the victim’s ankle.  Sansa had tried to think of them as patients and had immediately failed. This man was a victim, a victim of circumstance, a victim of fate, a victim of bad medical practices and small budgets and the utter stupidity of mankind. 

 

Darkness fell and there were more men to treat, so kerosene lanterns were lit and hung from the support pole of the large canvas tent. On Dr. Seaworthy’s saw went, on and on and on. He dunked it in a porcelain basin of spirits (vodka, he’d told her in between patients, distilled from potatoes) in between uses, but the thing didn’t even have time to dry before it was being used on yet another man. 

 

At least the victims of Davos’ saw were unconscious. The doctor used chloroform generously, so the patient only woke to pain and a missing limb. 

 

When the saw was set into its spirit bath for the night Sansa stumbled out of the tent. She found her small pile of belongings, unrolled the blanket, and fell asleep right there on the ground, just outside the surgery tent’s flap. 

 

The doctor woke her the next morning by shoving a tin cup of coffee under her nose. “Wake up, lass,” he said not unkindly. “The first day’s the worst. You didn’t faint, and proud of you I am for that.”

 

Sansa took the coffee and tried not to think of the events of the last day. “Where’s Jeyne?” she managed to ask.

 

“You’re friend is off with a list of supplies I’m requisitioning for the two of you. You can’t go into battle without supplies,” Davos said. 

 

Sansa got stiffly to her feet. “When do we leave?” she asked. 

 

“Information like that’s above my pay level,” Davos quipped. “But I’d guess in a day or two.”

 

“More surgery today?” Sansa asked, trying not to let hope get the better of her. 

 

“There’s always the possibility, men can hurt themselves in a myriad of ways, but it’s not likely. Today we prepare our supplies, try not to let any of yesterday’s patients die, and pray that this war ends quickly.”

 

That day and all the ones that came after began to fly by. The army left Chattanooga and began to slowly crawl towards Atlanta. No major battles were held, but shots were fired nearly every day. The bulk of Lee’s army was gridlocked in Virginia, and so all Sherman really had to do was to force his troops further and further south, rolling over the little pockets of resistance that stood in his way. 

 

Sansa and Jeyne learned to put up a tent in a matter of minutes. Jeyne became adept at identifying the patients most likely to survive and marking them for immediate treatment. Sansa became so familiar with (and almost numb to) the rhythms of Dr. Seaworthy’s surgery that she likely could have done it herself. Her dress bore permanent bloodstains, and she’d lost the tip of her left middle finger to a slip of Dr. Lawn’s saw. He’d stitched it for her and had declared that he couldn’t have done it more cleanly if he’d done it on purpose. Sandor had tried to go after the doctor, but Sansa had stopped him. She’d met the other surgical aides, and one girl had lost all of the fingers (excepting her thumb) on one of her hands. It was the nature of the work, and she was still alive. She’d told Sandor that it would giver her one less fingernail to trim, and then she’d passed out.

 

Not all visitors to the surgical tents had a wound sustained in battle. Men stepped on snakes or caught fevers or auges or got in fights and injured one another. Sansa actually sent one man to the surgical hospital, though she’d been hoping to send him to an early grave.

 

His name was Walter Frey, and he’d come to Dr. Seaworthy while supporting a friend who had been wounded in one of the skirmishes the army had on the slow crawl to Atlanta. Walter wasn’t wounded. He waited outside the surgical tent while Davos stitched up his compatriot. 

 

“Rebel cowards went running with their tail between their legs, they couldn’t stand the heat!” he was boasting to the men who had set up their tents for the night. The men of this battalion, the one stationed back by the medical tents, they knew that Sansa was Sandor’s. Most treated with her with respects, often helping her to set up hers and Jeyne’s tent or scavenging for firewood for her. This man, though, nothing was breaking through his shell of self-adoration and post-fight adrenaline. 

 

Sansa was crouched next to her cookfire boiling beef broth for the invalids and amputees that were residing in the hospital tents. The scavenging groups had come back with a thin cow the day before, and the bones and a few slivers of meat had been saved for this precise purpose. 

 

Walter Frey walked up behind Sansa. “C’mere love. Don’t you want to reward me for my bravery? Just a little kiss.” He lunged towards her and she moved backwards, away from her fire, but unfortunately towards her tent. 

 

“Aye, I’d like a bit more than a kiss too,” he said, and put a hand over her mouth and drug her into the tent in one smooth motion. 

 

Sansa didn’t know if anyone else had seen him drag her away, so she couldn’t rely on anyone coming for help. She had the knife Sandor had given her strapped to her leg. She’d balked at first, saying that she wouldn’t feel right wearing it, but Sandor had been correct once more. 

 

Now she just had to get it. 

 

Frey tugged her to Jeyne’s pallet and forged her down, his hand still on her mouth. He went to kiss her, and moved his hands to her shoulders, which gave Sansa just enough freedom to bend her leg up and get her hand down. 

 

She slammed the knife into Frey’s back, just below the ribcage, and he screamed and slumped. She grabbed the knife, rolled out from under him, and stabbed him again, and then once more for good measure. 

 

“Sansa?” 

 

She heard Sandor’s voice outside her tent. 

 

“In here,” Sansa wheezed, her body starting to shake. “Here,” she managed a little more loudly. 

 

Sandor ducked his head into the tent, and it only took a few seconds for him to grasp just what had gone on. Sansa’s knife was still stuck into Frey’s back in the vicinity of his kidneys, and she was crouched beside him, shivering. 

 

“We have to get him to Davos,” she whispered, and crouched, tugging at the man’s ankles. 

 

Frey twitched at Sansa’s jerking motion. “Help!” he said. “Help!”

 

Sandor was going to help him right into hell. He lunged into the already crowded tent and Sansa started to cry. “Davos,” she whimpered. “We have to get him to Davos.”

 

Sandor wasn’t willing to cause Sansa any more pain, but he wasn’t exactly willing to do this man any favors. Sandor took him by the ankle and drug him, knife still in, between the campfire and the tent and into the surgical area. 

 

Davos Seaworthy was a canny man, and he understood what had happened. Sansa would find out later that he’d cleaned and stitched the man’s wounds without chloroform, despite the fact that they had plenty. 

 

Sandor took Sansa by the hand and led her back to the tent. It had been two minutes, maybe three since he’d found her, and she was still shaky. He crouched low and crawled into the tent, tossed Jeyne’s bloodied pallet into the fire outside (he’d give her his if he had to) and tugged Sansa into the tent with him. 

 

He’d wanted to lay with her in privacy and to assure himself that nothing had actually happened to her, that she’d gotten to her knife in time. Sandor hadn’t anticipated her kissing him like a drowning woman coming up for air. 

 

Sansa had war drums beating in her blood. She was alive, she was alive  _ right now,  _ and the man who had attacked her may not be. Sansa felt as though she was flying and suffocating and shaking apart from her core but what she felt most was a need to confirm that she  _ was  _ here and that she  _ was  _ alright and that it was  _ Sandor, Sandor who would never hurt her,  _ and so she kissed him and fumbled for his cock and took him like there wasn’t a tomorrow because there may not be. 

 

They lay together afterwards, Sandor surprised but understanding- he’d always wanted a whore after battle- and Sansa drowsing in adrenaline let-down. Eventually Sansa stirred and asked, in a sleep thickened voice, for her saddlebag. Sandor groped for it in the dark and watched in growing puzzlement as she heated water over the fire and made a terrible-smelling tea. 

 

“Pennyroyal,” she said when he asked. “I got it from the apothecary in Cairo.”

 

Sandor had forgotten- Cairo felt like it had happened a lifetime ago, and to entirely different people. 

 

“It brings on a woman’s menses,” she whispered to him as they sat on a battlefield somewhere in Georgia. 

 

He thought he loved her then, loved her for her foresight and her unwillingness to bring a life into this disaster and her unwillingness to further endanger herself by bearing a child. He kissed her, tasting the awful tea, and pulled her back to sleep with him in the tent. 

 

He walked back through the maze of tents as the run rose, walked back to his responsibilities and command and the war, but he walked away from the woman he now knew he loved. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should have broken that into two chapters, but whatever! THANK YOU to all who have left me comments, they are always appreciated. Thank you again for making it this far! We're nearly halfway done. 
> 
> Next chapter is a short one- Sandor and Sansa make it to Atlanta, and there is no sex at all! How did I manage that??


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atlanta.

Sandor woke a week, a month, a lifetime after leaving Chattanooga to the same orders he’d been receiving every day.  _ Keep your forces moving.  _

 

He’d been present- his new rank had demanded that he be there- when Sherman had read his orders out to the officers. They were to move south and cut off Lee’s resources and his ability to retreat. They were to destroy any areas that gave them resistance, and they were to free any slaves they encountered- hence his daily instructions to  _ keep moving.  _

 

The army moved. It moved slowly, but it moved, and wiped out everything in its path. Sandor had never seen so much fire. The scent seemed permanently in his nose, in his hair, maybe stamped into his very soul. 

 

_ An army needs to eat _ Sherman said, and so scouting groups were sent out daily, groups that would return with pork and beef and vegetable preserves that represented one family’s hope of surviving the coming winter. Whenever Sandor saw smoke on the horizon he knew the scouting parties had found another homestead to torch or another town to burn after it had been picked clean of loot. 

 

It was warm and muggy by the time Sherman’s forces reached the outside of Atlanta. Summer hung as a heavy threat in the late spring air, and Sandor wondered how things would be if he and Sansa had stayed in Winterfell. It would be cooler, wonderfully cooler, and quiet. The birds and the bugs would make sounds, but it would be miles and miles and miles until you reached another human. Sandor rather thought even the rolling expanse of Winterfell might not be enough room for him after this. 

 

Sandor saw Sansa nearly every night. He would ride or walk to the back of the camp where the hospital was set up. She and Jeyne shared a tent, so he couldn’t stay with her, but she would sit inside his splayed legs and lean against his chest and they would sit quietly and pretend that they were alone, that they were back in the bunkhouse, and mostly that there was no war. Occasionally they would fall asleep like that, too exhausted to move, and when Sansa woke in the morning her hair would smell of Sandor and her head would be pillowed on a blanket, a saddlebag, and once, the actual saddle. 

 

She saw him more now that Sherman’s forces were laying siege to Atlanta. Sandor would be waiting for her with hot water and whatever food he could find when she stumbled out of the surgery tent. He’d wash her hands for her and once he fed her, bite by bite, when she insisted she was too tired to eat. He hadn’t castigated her again, not after that scene in Chattanooga. She was here now, she had come with him, and so they only thing they could do was make the best of it. 

 

Sherman attempted to break the Atlanta twice, sending his cavalry in each time. They were resoundingly beaten back, and on those days Sansa looked at each new patient hoping and praying  _ not  _ to see Sandor’s familiar face. So far he’d always returned to her, bloody and weary in his soul, and those nights they would intentionally sleep in a tangle by the fire. 

 

Eventually the army moved. Sherman took the western train depot that rain into Atlanta, and he followed the rails into the city, burning everything as he went. 

 

The wounded poured into the hospital tents like blood from a wound. Sansa had had a saw shoved into her hand and a table set up beside Davos’ own. “You’ve seen me do it a thousand times,” he’d yelled over the boom of artillery and the shrieks of the wounded, man and beast alike. “We can’t afford to slow down.”

 

Sansa took up the saw. She’d asked long ago why so many limbs needed amputated now. Dr. Seaworthy had explained (over the sound of his bone saw) that the new minnie balls that the soldiers were using could go further, but they expanded when they made impact with their target. Instead of leaving clean holes they smashed into bodies and shattered bones and ripped open arteries and pulled muscle off bone.

 

She concentrated on that now. She couldn’t be Sansa Stark, she had to be a pair of hands with a purpose, that’s all she was. She was the hand that administered the chloroform, she was the hand that slit the skin, she was the hand that held the saw. 

 

It went on for days, though Sansa didn’t know it. There was always another bloody, broken body that needed some kind of fixing. 

 

She’d later learn that she and Dr. Seaworthy operated for nearly three days. She fell asleep outside the operating tent when she stepped out for some air, her saw still in her hand. 

 

Sansa woke up to the familiar sound of Dr. Seaworthy’s burr and Sandor’s deeper voice. She opened her eyes and turned immediately to Sandor, eager to see for herself if he was alright. He was bloody and had a bandage over one shoulder, but he appeared as well as he could be. 

 

“Atlanta fell,” Sandor said succinctly. “Just arrests and cleanup left.” They sat together for a few moments until Davos left to check on those recovering from treatment. Sandor wouldn’t be the only scarred man now; Sansa had treated more burns in the past days than bayonet wounds. 

 

“Cersei?” she asked quietly.

 

Sandor shrugged. 

 

Sansa stood. “Let’s go.”

 

She rode behind Sandor on Reaper into the ravaged streets of Atlanta. Darcy had been taken weeks ago, for just as many horses died in battle as did humans. 

 

Huge chunks of the city still smoldered, and it was hard for Sansa to figure out where they were. They kept moving towards the center of the city, and eventually Sansa recognized the church where Cersei would “pray” every Sunday in her expensive European finery. 

 

“Turn left here,” she whispered to Sandor, and they moved through the rubble down a street littered with ashes and bodies and abandoned belongings. 

 

Cersei’s mansion still stood. It was smoke-blackened and the gardens were no longer the lush, rich showcase of wealth and position that they’d once been, but still: her house stood. Cersei’s childhood home ( _ one _ of her childhood homes) still stood while Sansa’s did not, and suddenly Sansa couldn’t stand the injustice any longer. She slid over Reaper’s flank and shot up the marble steps that lead into Cersei’s den. 

 

The expensive stained glass front door was ajar and she flew through it, her heart set on vengeance, the taste of victory in her mouth, and then she collided with a male chest. Hands steadied her, and she looked back to see Daniel Targaryen, the information man from Kentucky. 

 

“Well, Miss Stark, you made it to Atlanta after all,” he said. 

 

“Where’s Cersei?” Sansa asked, looking around the foyer. The large mirror that had hung on the wall was gone, and brighter wallpaper squares showed where the paintings of Tywin and Joanna had been. Much of the furniture was missing, and a mean little corner of Sansa’s soul was happy to see that Cersei lost at least  _ something.  _

 

Targaryen took a step back from Sansa. “She isn’t here. Tyrion Lannister and I followed Sherman’s troops into the city, but she was already gone.”

 

Sandor came in the door and stood behind Sansa. 

 

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Sansa asked.

 

Targaryen shrugged. “Look for yourself. She may have fled when the siege started. She certainly isn’t in power anymore, I can tell you that. Lee’s army is being run to ground in Virginia, and now he has nowhere left to retreat.”

 

Sansa walked through the gutted mansion remembering how it had been. Sandor followed her, worried. She wasn’t in the same state she’d been in when he found her in front of the flaming Winterfell ranch, but it seemed close. She ran her fingers over the now-dirty linen wall paper. She hovered in the library, and rushed past the room that had once been Joffrey’s. In the bedroom that had been hers she went directly to the window and stood looking out for a long time. 

 

Eventually Sansa drifted back out to the wide front porch. “Do you remember what you asked me the last time we were on this porch together?”

 

Sandor looked down at her and nodded. Clearing his throat he said, “I asked you to go North with me. I said I’d get you on a train and away from this place.”

 

Sansa took a step closer and reached for Sandor’s hand. “Ask me again.” 

 

“Sansa,” he said, and his voice came out low and cracked. “Sansa, will you please, please let me take you away from this fucking place?”

 

“Yes,” she said. 

  
He boosted her back onto the horse (in front of him this time, he didn’t say anything but he needed to hold her) and they rode back out of Atlanta and into the army camp. Sandor spent the entire time thinking of ways that he could get Sansa away that evening, that hour, that second because  _ fuck  _ the army. He would desert again without question. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! You made it to the halfway point! Thank you SO MUCH for sticking with me for so long!
> 
> Next chapter S&S head north again. (I'm pretty sure there's no sex in the next chapter either, what has happened to me?!)
> 
> I've also made the executive decision that I'll be posting the last chapter of this Christmas Eve. I figured if I gave you all some warning there would be less chance of it getting lost in the shuffle! (...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even the fangirls reading of Sansa and her spouse!)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traveling north, post-Atlanta.

Sansa was asleep by the time they made it all the way back to the medical tents. Sandor shook her awake and lowered her to the ground before dismounting and seeing to the horse. She’d made coffee by the time he was through, and he sat next to her, each sipping a cup. 

 

“How can we leave?” Sansa finally asked. “If you’re caught, they can kill you.” 

 

Sandor was willing to risk it. He’d just opened his mouth to give voice to that opinion when another man walked to their little campfire. 

 

“Sansa Stark? Sandor Clegane?” The man was tanned, dark-haired, and tired, though not nearly as exhausted looking as his horse. 

 

Sandor stood abruptly and nodded. “I’m Clegane.”

 

“I’m Lieutenant Gendry Waters. I’ve been sent with a message for you.” He pulled a grubby envelope out of his coat pocket and passed it to Sandor. Sandor passed it to Sansa, he wasn’t willing to take his eyes off this fellow long enough to read the note. He’d seen that trick used before. The man looked done in, and his horse was lathered and couldn’t keep it’s head up any longer. 

 

“Sandor,” Sansa said softly, wonder in her voice. “This is a commendation from General Grant himself. Your role in taking the city reached his ears, and he’s ended your commission. We can leave.” 

 

“Wish I could go with you,” said Waters. He tipped his cap at them and led his shuffling horse away through the smoke of an entire army’s campfires and the smoldering remains of a once-great city.

 

“We need to leave now,” said Sansa, gathering her medical pouch and saddlebags. “Someone else could show up at any time and take that from you. Now, Sandor!” 

 

He helped her tie her bedroll and bags to the back of his saddle before leading Reaper back to the front and gathering his own belongings. The moon was high when they walked out of camp. They didn’t know where they were going, and the didn’t have a plan. They were just keeping the moon on their right and walking north. They walked through the morning gloaming and the early heat of the day. They napped by a scraggly tree along a burned and salted field before waking to walk some more. Sometimes Sandor rode, sometimes Sansa, and they would briefly ride together. 

 

They came across a small platoon of union soldiers on the third day. They accepted Sandor’s papers of discharge with a weary indifference. The leader, Ed Dollored, told Sandor that they were almost to the Tennessee line. Chattanooga was a little more than a two days walk, and from there the rail lines were intact and they could get wherever they needed to go. 

 

Sansa and Sandor walked, side by side, for the next three days. Reaper was tired- burnt fields meant horses couldn’t graze- and it had been a long war for him as well. He’d been ridden from Atlanta through a year of battles to that night in Virginia when he carried Sandor away. He got Sandor through two sets of mountains and to Winterfell. He’d walked to Georgia, and it looked like he was going to do it all again. 

 

When they walked into Chattanooga Sansa and Sandor and Reaper paused on the edge of the road, trying to gain their bearings. Sandor leaned onto Reaper’s shoulder and murmured, “If we get you back to Winterfell, it’s going to be hay and mares for the rest of your days. Just hay and fucking mares.” 

 

They found a tavern by the rail lines. Reaper was given hay and water outside and then the two of them stepped into the gloom that smelled of unwashed men and weak beer. They walked straight to the low bar in the back of the establishment. A few customers sat along it- two men too old to have fought, and one man with one leg. A worn looking woman sat behind the bar, her dishwater colored eyes following them as they moved towards her. 

 

“Does a passenger train come through here?” Sandor asked. 

 

The woman’s eyes moved over Sandor’s face and uniform. Her eyes returned to his face, and she said nothing 

 

Sandor dug in a pocket and brought out the slips of paper now being used as currency. He passed her a slip that stood for ten cents, and it disappeared into her apron within a blink. 

 

“Five o’clock,” she said in a rasp. “Yard’s down six streets.” Her eyes drifted back to the door, waiting for the next body to walk through. 

 

Sansa and Sandor thanked her (she didn’t acknowledge the thanks with even so much as a nod) and the collected Reaper and walked slowly through the streets. Hardly anyone was moving in the streets, and it reminded Sansa oddly of Atlanta. The buildings still stood, but there was an air of defeat here, of abandonment, and the people they saw had gazes that moved right through them.

 

They got to the rail yard and found a bench outside the office. Sansa picked apart the seam inside of her saddlebag and pulled out a dollar coin; one of the silver ones from before the war and money that could burn. 

 

She passed it to Sandor- she was tired, too tired to come up with the explanations this time- and they entered the soot-stained little building.  A man in patched and faded union blue sat at the little desk. His left sleeve was pinned shut- empty- at the shoulder. 

 

Sandor walked to the counter. “How much for the 5 o’clock to Memphis. Two people, one horse.”

 

The man’s face creased as he looked at Sandor. 

 

“Are you Clegane? Sandor Clegane?” 

 

Sandor somehow managed to look even more tired and fierce as he glared at the man. “Does that change the price of a fucking ticket?” he asked. 

 

“Yes, actually, it does.” The man smiled and stood and thrust his hand at Sandor. “I was the one who took down the telegram that came through about you. You led a group of fifty men into Atlanta- well, chased them into Atlanta- and took the trainyard and weapons cache. Any man who can do that rides free.”

 

Sansa wondered, in a half-asleep, dreamy way, why Sandor hadn’t told her of the battle. She supposed she should have asked; his letter of discharge was given as a gift for his service. 

 

They spent fourteen cents on supper in a boarding house recommended by the soldier from the train office. It was a hot fish stew, made creamy with slow-cooked potatoes, and Sansa ate it slowly, savoring every bite. 

 

When they boarded the train (and left Reaper in a car full of sweet, summer-smelling hay) Sansa was full (finally full) and warm and enjoying the deep-honey glow of a late spring evening. The bench seats on the train were cushioned, and Sansa leaned her head on Sandor’s shoulder. The train started with a jerk and then slowly chuffed its way out of the yard. There weren’t any moans or sobs from wounded men, no campfire crackled, and Sansa didn’t have to keep one ear open for noises of men skulking around outside her tent. Rocked by the motion of the train and lulled by the safety she felt at Sandor’s side, Sansa slept. 

 

Sandor looked out the window of the train carriage as it rocked its way through the rolling mountains outside of Chattanooga. Sansa drowsed against his shoulder, little stray hairs tickling his ear. The train went through tiny little towns and clumps of houses that couldn’t even be called that. 

 

When Sandor left Virginia that burning, screaming night so long ago he’d ridden through the Appalachians, this same chain of mountains.He’d ridden though tiny little towns and weathered, crooked houses with skinny chickens scratching at the yard. Back then the angry women had judged him and the skinny, old-eyed children had watched silently as he’d gone. 

 

They didn’t look at the train now. The train took whole men to the war and sent them back in fragments- if they came back at all.  Now they didn’t look up; not the woman hanging out shirts so often washed they could be seen clear through, not the old man scratching at a scraggly patch of plants with a hoe, not the children with bones so sharp they jutted through their clothes. 

 

The train rattled on, and soon Sandor drowsed as well. He dreamed of Sansa, of sneaking up behind her as she hung clean sheets on a washline in the sunshine. 

 

Memphis wasn’t as touched by the war as Chattanooga. The fighting here had been brief and happened many months ago. The port town was now firmly in union hands, and Sandor and Sansa walked through busy streets as supplies and soldiers moved all over the city. Despite the nap on the train Sansa and Sandor were tired, tired in mind and body, and neither was able to make a decision about what they wanted to do next. 

 

Sandor checked them into an inn. It wasn’t on the busy main road but towards the dock. He suspected Sansa would want to go on the river again; it would be the quickest way to make their way back home. He’d caught himself thinking that recently-  _ home.  _ Home had been his father’s tiny little house when Sandor had been a boy. Then it had meant Atlanta in the general sense; it was the city he’d return to after each stupid skirmish and each idiotic little war. He’d thought of Winterfell as  _ her home  _ or  _ Sansa’s home  _ over the last months, but recently, well. He wasn’t only looking forward to that little bunkhouse and the mountain skyline for Sansa’s sake alone anymore. 

 

They walked into the little bedroom upstairs behind the maid. She bustled around banking the fire and filling a basin with water. When she left Sansa and Sandor remained where they stood, each eyeing the bed like it was a long lost lover. Sansa dropped her saddle bag on the floor, not bothering to mess with it, and went to basin of water. 

 

“I want to sleep,” she said to him. “I haven’t slept in a bed since- since Captain Blackwater took us to Lieutenant General Targaryen. And if I’m going to enjoy this, properly enjoy this, I’m going to be clean.”

 

Sandor sat at the edge of the bed on a well-worn quit in the middle of Memphis, Tennessee and felt his heart overflow. Here was a woman who had slept on the ground for months, after days and days of hard labor, and when she was presented with a bed the first thing she wanted to do was get clean. Sandor watched his Sansa- because his Sansa would do such a thing, would only be able to enjoy a clean bed if she were clean, too- as she stripped off her bloodstained dress and dirt-stained chemise so she could wash herself all over with a clean bit of soft flannel. Sandor felt stirrings, but  (slightly alarmingly) they weren’t the sexual sort. He just wanted to take care of this woman tonight, to give her a soft place to lay and a warm place to sleep. 

 

“Tie your linens up in the dress. I’ll take them down to the maid to be cleaned.” 

Sansa’s face lit up at that, and she dropped her washcloth in the basin to sprint across the floor and kiss him, hard, his face held between her palms. “Oh, would you please? I haven’t felt clean in, well, I don’t know how long.” 

 

Sandor kissed her back with a smile on his lips. As she finished her bath her took her little bundle of clothes downstairs. 

 

After he made his request the maid gave him a thorough once-over. “You need it too,” she said bluntly. “Leave your clothes outside the door and I’ll wash them and bring them back in the morning with hers.”

 

Sandor was grateful. Sansa’s bath had only made him even more aware of the fact that he’d been wearing these clothes everyday for months and months and months and they could use a wash even more than he could. 

 

Sansa was curled in the bed when he got back. It was still light out, so Sandor asked her if she wanted food while he stripped and took his own bath. She said she was too tired and comfortable to eat and she’d hit him if he tried to make her get up. She was teasing, but there was an edge to her voice that warned Sandor not to push his luck. He climbed naked into the bed, still damp, and enjoyed the feeling of Sansa’s skin and clean sheets and the sunshine playing over his body. The drowsed together, one occasionally reaching out to stroke the other, but neither seemed interested in anything more than holding and being held. 

 

Sansa wasn’t sleeping, despite all her talk about being so, so tired. Sandor could feel her lying stiffly beside him, her breathing even but forced. “What’s wrong, little bird?” he asked, unable to fall asleep and leave her alone in consciousness. 

 

Sansa took a deep breath and scooted herself closer to the big man beside her. “Nothing,” she murmured, but Sandor heard the hitch in her voice. 

 

“What the fuck is wrong; if you tell me, we can both sleep.” The pragmatism of his words were belied by the fingers that had come to run through her head and make little circles on her scalp. 

 

“It’s… stupid,” said Sansa on another pre-tears hiccup. “I just want to be home, and we’re going there I know, but-”

 

“But you never expected to make it this far,” Sandor finished. “Aye, I know. You’re so close to your goal you can taste it, but your fear grows with every day that passes that you still might not make it. That you’ll fail right there on the threshold.”

 

Sansa nodded, and Sandor could feel it with his fingers. “You’ve already made it through a war and a burning siege,” Sandor said. He pulled her hand up and kissed the tip of each finger, giving double the attention to the one that had been accidentally shortened. “You’ve even got the battle scars to prove it.”

 

Sansa rolled onto her other side so she could rest her cheek against Sandor’s chest. She cried then, just a little, while making no noise. Sandor thought about trying to distract her with bluster, but he didn’t have the energy either. He waited patiently, his fingers in her hair, as each tear trickled over her porcelain skin to drip on his chest. She quieted quickly, falling asleep, and only when Sandor was sure she would remain asleep did he follow her into darkness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters today! I want this thing posted by Christmas Eve. Next chapter is fun! Riverboat Sex, Part II, tee hee ;) See you Thursday! (I know I post these at strange times, but I don't have internet at home. Boooo.)
> 
> As always, thank you for sticking with me. I've finished Jon and Ygritte's (much smaller) story that is also set in this 'verse, so I will have even more to post after Christmas! Hurrah! Jon is a trapper up in Canada :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riverboat II.  
> Dinner party.  
> SMUT SMUT SMUT  
> Sandor's mouth got away from me.

They slept and slept and slept. The sun was high by the time they finally roused, and they’d fallen asleep the previous day before it had been fully dark. Their clothes were spread over the table and chairs against the far wall of the little room, and Sandor made a mental note to find the maid and thank her. Sandor got up and began to dress, his hunger now a roaring, insistent thing. Sansa was still in the bed, and he watched as she stretched luxuriantly, her spine arching and thrusting her breasts into the sunlight. 

 

The winter and the war had taken their toll and she was even thinner than she’d been before, every rib was visible to him, but she was still the most breathtaking thing he’d ever seen. “Get dressed and I’ll feed you,” he said as he dropped a kiss onto her lips. He left the room on a mission.

 

It turned out it was already noon. Sandor tipped the maid for her diligence and she just grinned up at him. “I knocked twice,” she said, “but you were still asleep. I didn’t want your only clothes to get stolen, so I tiptoed in to leave them for you. You were quite a sight, curled up around you lady like a great puppy.”

 

Sandor felt his face start to heat. “Miss-”

 

“Ros,” said the maid cheekily. “Call me Ros.”

 

“Ros,” said Sandor, still awkward. “Does the kitchen here do any kind of luncheon? Meat pies, maybe?”

 

“Aye we do; today’s are sausage and vegetable.”

 

Sandor paid for two, tipped Ros for all her help, and returned to Sansa. 

 

She was dressed and clean and smiling. He came in the room and she moved to hug him good morning. She tipped her head back with her arms still around his waist. “When do you think we need to leave?” she asked him. She cut her eyes to the bed and then back to him with a wide grin that made Sandor think of the sirens in old stories. 

 

“Now, more’s the pity,” he said. “We’ve meat pies waiting downstairs.”

 

Sandor was almost offended at how quickly Sansa abandoned her amorous attempts at the thought of food. She ate with her normal quiet grace, her features once more aglow. Sandor wondered if he’d ever get used to her joy at a hot meal she hadn’t had to clean and cook. It was probably a good thing Winter Town was so far from Winterfell, he’d likely beggar himself just to watch her eat bread. 

 

He was still shaking his head over his own stupidity when they left the inn and collected Reaper. Sandor boosted Sansa into the saddle and together they walked down to the wharf. “Do you think the Tarleys are here?” she asked. 

 

“We can ask,” said Sandor. He left Sansa to wait with Reaper while he went to the Harbour Master’s office. 

 

“They’re due back any time now,” he said, and Sansa broke into a grin. “You’re full of smiles today,” he said, wishing he was brave enough to kiss her here in front of god and everybody.

 

“I got sleep,” Sansa sighed, and in that sigh he heard a little girl who had spent her mornings lounging in bed and blissfully unaware of the sorrows in the world. 

 

They sat and watched the ships again. Sansa was still anxious to be home, to be able to put this war and this trip in her past, but she was content to sit in the spring breeze and watch the boats, big and small, navigate in and out of the channel. 

 

“Oh! Look!” she said eventually. She pointed to a boat coming south down the river and hopped up. 

 

She turned and grinned down at Sandor as the Sultana slowly chugged to the dock. “We really made it through, didn’t we.” She wasn’t smiling anymore, but she didn’t seem upset.

 

“We did, princess. We certainly did.”

 

Sansa and Sandor waited to one side of the gangplank as the crew carried cargo off of the boat. Eventually Sam and Gilly and the baby came down the slight ramp. 

 

“Oh, Sansa!” said Gilly, catching sight of the girl waiting on the dock. The two women hugged, and Sansa exclaimed over Young Sam, who was toddling on his own, one pudgy fist gripping his mother’s skirts. 

 

Sandor shook Sam’s hand, and he couldn’t even come up with the effort required to be annoyed by the shorter man’s smile. “I’ve got something for you. Will you be staying in Memphis tonight?” Sam said. 

 

“We were hoping to get a ride up the river,” said Sandor.

 

“Sure, we can do that. I’ve got to check in at the harbour office, but you’re welcome to walk with us.”

 

Sandor was curious, but he managed to enjoy the walk and Sansa’s female babble with the other woman. It was an easy afternoon spent in the sunshine- no orders, no fighting, and Sansa was there. Life was good.

 

“We don’t leave till tomorrow morning,” Gilly said. “But you’re welcome to spend the night on the ship with us. It’s just the one horse this time?” she added, eyeing Reaper doubtfully.

 

“Just the one,” said Sansa. “And we’ll be able to pay, of course.”

 

“That won’t be necessary,” said Sam. The group was seated in clever little foldable chairs on the deck of the boat in the evening sun. 

 

“You remember when we got to port last time you’d given me custody of Trevor Dalt, the poisoner? Well, I took him to Colonel Barristan, and told him what Dalt had told us, and Barristan said that the man was wanted by the federal government and had a bounty on him. Barristan gave me fifty dollars,” said Sam in a tone that still seemed to be amazed at how much money he’d received for turning in a criminal. “I set aside half of it, because you did the work, really. I kept hoping you would make it back.” 

 

Sam smiled at Sandor again. 

 

“You saved the money for me?” he said, bewildered. Maybe northerners really were nicer than southern men. 

 

“I sure did,” said Sam proudly. “It’s in the ship safe.”

 

“How much is passage to Cairo?” asked Sandor.

 

“For you? You can go free, my friend. You made me twenty five dollars richer the last time we met, you’ve more than covered your fare.” 

 

Sam grinned at Sandor again, and Sandor managed to smile back. 

 

Sansa and Sandor slept deeply again that night. They could hear other boat’s wheels splashing in the water, and occasionally they could hear someone shout along the docks. Sandor woke in the morning pleasantly stiff, the kind of creaky joints you can only get after a night of motionless sleep. His cock woke stiff too, and he remembered what he and Sansa had done the last time they slept aboard the  _ Sultana.  _

 

Sandor counselled himself to be patient (after all they still had tonight) and stood and dressed as Sansa blinked sleepily at him from the bunk. 

 

They spent the morning busily helping the Tarleys and crew prepare for the next trip north. Sandor helped haul tinned food and empty crates into the ship’s storage berth, and Sansa and Gilly and Young Sam spent the morning in the galley taking inventory of the supplies and planning out the weekly menus.  

 

Sandor was distracted. It got especially bad when other passengers started getting on board and he no longer had manual labor on which to concentrate- he just couldn’t stop thinking about what Sansa had said and what they had done the last time they were on this boat. 

 

Lunch was quick but relaxed. Sam, Sandor, and Sansa ate out on the deck of the boat while Gilly put Young Sam down for his nap. Sam invited the two of them to dinner in his and Gilly’s cabin, which Sansa happily accepted. Sandor just resigned himself to waiting that much longer before he could get Sansa alone. Finally, after the boat was underway and darkness fell, Sandor could spend some time with Sansa. 

 

They knocked on the door to what Gilly called the Family Rooms. There was a little sitting area and dining table, and Gilly had laid out plates of the meal that she and Sansa had prepared for the guests. A bottle of wine was breathing in between the candlesticks, and Young Sam was napping in a basket. 

 

“Who’s steering?” Sansa asked after exclaiming over the cozy little nest Gilly created in the Captain’s suite.

 

“The first mate. His name’s Abram, but he goes by Grey Worm. Very hard working. Sometimes,” Sam confided as he poured the wine, “I think that he’s better at navigating than I am.”

 

“Grey Worm?” said Sansa. “That’s odd.”

 

“He’s a freed slave,” Gilly said. “The Targaryens took over a huge chunk of territory and freed all of the slaves there. They even crucified some of the overseers. We sailed past it before they built the blockade south of Memphis.”

 

Everyone was silent for a moment, and Sansa took a gulp of wine out of awkward panic. “They probably had it coming, the cunts,” said Sandor succinctly. 

 

To Sansa’s surprise Gilly nodded emphatically and Sam was the one who blushed at Sandor’s language.   

 

“How long have you been married?” Gilly asked as they forked into their dinner, clearly trying to avoid talk of the war. 

 

“Almost two years, isn’t it Sandor?” Sansa said smoothly, neatly cutting a tiny bite of venison. 

 

Sandor had a mouth stuffed full of butter beans, and managed a nod. 

 

“Sam and I have been together- oh, four years now I think,” said Gilly. 

 

“How did you meet?” Sansa asked. 

 

“I was raised by my father on trapping trails in Canada. He came south one spring to sell his furs and Sam had just inherited the Sultana. He whisked me away.” Gilly smiled at her husband then, and Sandor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 

 

They chatted through one bottle of wine and into another. It had been a while- years, really- since any of them had indulged, and Sandor had been diligent in filling the glasses, particularly Sansa’s. He’d also been touching her under the table, little caresses of her thighs and once a pinch on the arse that made her noticeably jump.

 

“Ah you tryin’ to tahk ahdvantage of this sweet sahthern flowah?” she asked him in her best affected Georgia debutante accent. 

 

“Yes,” said Sandor, and Sansa blushed up at him. 

 

“Good,” she whispered, and then Gilly tried to cover a laugh with a cough and the conversation moved on. 

 

“Sam and I were thinking of heading further up the river, actually. We can make it as far as Chamberlain, and Grey Worm’s wife lives along the way. She’s a translator that works out of the fort.”

 

Sandor’s hand was on Sansa’s thigh, and she had to work hard to form a response. 

 

“You’re not just doing that for us, are you?” Sansa asked, touched. 

 

“No, we go up every so often with seasonal supplies and so that Grey Worm can see his Missandei. We do want to do this for you though, we don’t often meet couples our own age we can develop a friendship with,” Gilly said shyly. 

 

Sansa teared up at that, which made Gilly weepy, and Sandor had to work  _ hard  _ not to roll his eyes. 

 

Eventually the wine and the cobbler was gone and the Tarleys were wishing Sansa and Sandor good night. 

 

Sansa was still a little giggly from the wine so when Sandor grabbed her and tossed her over his shoulder like she was no more than a sack of grain she laughed and squealed when he play-smacked her on the behind. 

 

He jogged with her through the corridors and set her down and opened to door to their cabin in one smooth motion. Sansa felt  _ need.  _ The wine and her ride over Sandor’s shoulder had awakened something inside her, something primitive and as old as time, something that remembered painting on cave walls and worshipping the sun and fighting for the strongest, fittest mate.

 

They slammed into the door, Sansa’s hands fisted in the material over Sandor’s shoulders, tugging him down to her. He pivoted so that she was against the door, her softness sandwiched between the door and her man. She was already gasping for breath and fumbling at Sandor’s shirt. She wanted him here, now, with his skin pressed against hers. 

 

Sandor was gritting his teeth against the idea of just ripping Sansa out of her dress.  _ He  _ wouldn’t mind if she had to go around naked as newborn, but since he didn’t want other men enjoying all her beautiful curves and planes he impatiently unbuttoned her dress. 

 

_ Faster  _ Sansa whispered, and the word went right to Sandor’s cock. He needed to ask now, before he forgot or threw caution to the wind or his brain melted under Sansa’s feminine onslaught. 

 

“Sansa, princess-” He had to kiss her then, he just had to, he had to wrap her braid around his fist and haul her head back and kiss her with everything that was in him. 

 

He pulled back and looked at her. “Sansa, I want to try something. You’ll like it, I think, but you have to relax and trust me.”

 

Sansa squinted up at him, and he could see her brain shifting from lust to suspicion. Since that wouldn’t do he nuzzled into her neck and let his scruff scrape over that ticklish spot he’d found in the hot spring’s cave so many months ago. 

 

“Why do you want to do  _ that _ ,” she asked, and Sandor could sense the betrayal in her voice.

 

“You’ll still be able to see me, though fuck if I know why you’d want to. It won’t be that, not yet, not ever if you really find it so distasteful. Just a finger, lass. I think you’ll like it,” he said again, letting his mouth cruise down to the smooth skin beneath her collarbone, taking advantage of the way her halfway unbuttoned dress gaped. 

 

“Okay,” Sansa whispered, and Sandor felt her capitulation and it humbled and aroused him more than anything had ever done. This is what it meant to be a man, this is what it could mean to be  _ her  _ man, and so Sandor kissed her again. 

 

She kissed him back, her flagging passion rising to fever pitch again in seconds, and she shivered in lust and anticipation and heady pride in her own courage. When Sandor went to end the kiss and move away Sansa grabbed his hair in a fist and help him to her. He growled and that primitive heat that reveled in the strength of her mate flamed to greater heights. 

 

Finally- with much nipping and kissing and bouncing off the odd, curving walls of their room- they successfully got each other undressed. Sandor tumbled to the bed with Sansa atop him, and she giggled as she bounced against him. 

 

They hadn’t been together since that night Sansa tried to kill the Frey man (he’d died in a skirmish later on, it had been a rather strange day all around, no one quite knew where the shot had come from) and they hadn’t been skin to skin naked since that last time here on this boat. He wanted to slide into her now- he knew she’d be wet for him- but she deserved more and better. 

 

Sandor bent his knees and shimmied himself down so that his head was almost off the pillow. He scooped Sansa’s arse into his hands and slid her up his chest so that her patch of tight auburn curls was right beneath his chin. 

 

“Sandor!” she said, and her fingers flew to the wall as she tried to push herself away from him. He grabbed her hips and kept her where he wanted her. 

 

“I want to look at you, princess, but gods, I have to taste you. You taste like woman and, well fuck, you taste like life. Like we’re alive, and headed home, and I just want to stay right here between your legs until the Reckoning day.” He cupped her behind in his big hands and slid her up until her soft womanhood was right over his mouth. She’d stiffened and had tried to rise up on her knees in scandalized surprise, but he held her over him and nosed up into her wet folds. 

 

He took a long, lazy lick of her cunny, the tightest, prettiest cunny he’d ever seen, and Sansa sighed above him. He opened her a little with his fingers and set off a rhythm of flicks and licks and within moments she was gasping into the air above him. 

 

Sandor felt her fingers tentatively trace over his eyebrows and he growled in appreciation. He could imagine her above him, her back arched a little as she thrust her hips into him, one arm resting against her flat belly as her hand roamed down to stroke his face where it lay between her thighs. It was an erotic image, and Sandor hoped that one day they could get a tall floor mirror like Cersei had had so that Sansa could admire herself but  _ also  _ so that he could put it somewhere where he could admire her too, in situations much like this one. 

 

When Sansa’s hips hitched forwards of their own volition, trying to follow the rhythm of hip lips and tongue, Sandor’s fingers tightened on her. When her breath was starting to hitch and her hips were rolling with the smooth efficiency of pistons Sandor stopped and gently lifted her off him. 

 

“Not yet,” he said as he wiped his face on the sheet. Sansa retaliated by taking his cock into her mouth with cat-like reflexes, her back arched and her braid swinging over her shoulder. Sandor hadn’t factored this in as part of his plan, but  _ Christ  _ her mouth was hot and wet and he could see himself sliding between those wet lips and her hand was on him just right and-

 

He moved away from her because this was going to be over  _ far  _ too soon if he allowed her to continue. He rearranged them then (while letting his fingers play in her folds, her hot wet folds, because he couldn’t let her forget what they were about here). Once his back was against the wall with his legs stretched in front of him (his cock jutting up at a truly impressive angle) he pulled her back into his lap. She grinned down at him, a Cheshire smile, feminine and secret. 

 

Sansa placed his cock against her kitty and slowly slid along it, not letting it inside of her, just using her own slickness and his hard heat to rub her little nub. 

 

Sandor looked at her- their faces were almost level this way, with her on her knees- and he couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth. “I could live between your legs lass, just stay here ‘til I starve from wanting you.”

 

Sansa kissed him, but he kept talking when she pulled back and he kept talking when he took himself in hand and slid into her liquid heat. They both groaned then, Sansa from the feeling of fullness, Sandor from the feeling of heaven. 

 

“I don’t give a fuck if this is wrong, if the gods or the priests or people think this is wrong,” he murmured as they set up a slow rocking rhythm. “It’s heaven between your legs and sleeping next to you is better than any fucking communion.” Sansa shifted to wrap her legs around Sandor’s torso so that she was sitting on his lap, his cock secure and tight inside her. 

 

“This,” Sandor said, the words still coming, “would be worth an eternity of hellfire.” He insinuated his hand between them and let the tips of his fingers run over the place where he stretched her opening wide. She keened a little, in a place without words, so he continued to rock into her and touch her and confess. 

 

“This is my church-” a harder thrust. “This is is where I see god-” his fingers were coated with her slick. “This is where I’ll fucking worship.” His wet fingers were circling her arsehole now, and it seemed as if all of Sansa’s nerve endings had rewired themselves to the place where Sandor’s sticky finger circled and circled, but never went in. 

 

Sansa dropped her forehead to Sandor’s shoulder and groaned. She was relieved to taste sweat when she licked Sandor’s skin, for she’d gone past the place of having worries and doubts and self-consciousness. Sansa was need embodied, and right now she needed his finger inside her. She pressed back into him, it was barely a movement, but he noticed, bless the man. 

 

Sandor pressed his finger through the first ring of muscle into her heat, and for a moment he thought he could feel himself inside her cunt. Sansa keened and pressed back into him, against the finger, so he wriggled it in a little deeper and couldn’t stop his own mouth from pouring out words. 

 

“God, I love this part of you.” He scraped his nails down one arsecheek. “I love the way your bum makes your skirts twitch when you’re riled up and flouncing away. I love watching the way it curves over your saddle, I really fucking love the way it looks when you bend over to pick something up.” He was still rocking into her, his finger slowly making circles inside those little rings of muscle, and Sansa was making hitching half-sobs in his ear. Sandor took pity on her then, and used his free hand to tease the little nubbin that had swollen so much inside its little hood. 

 

Sansa came then with a shout in his ear. Every part of her seemed to clamp down on him then, like she was trying to trap him inside of herself, and with a groan he spilled into the woman who made him only want to give and give and give. 

 

He wriggled his finger back out of her before he had the energy to move anything else. She stayed sprawled on him, her lungs sucking in great gulps of air. In the end Sandor had to slide Sansa off of him, but he didn’t mind, no sir he did not. He chose to take her boneless complacency as a testament to his bedskill, and nothing had ever made him feel more of a man.

 

He cleaned them up and arranged Sansa under a light sheet. 

 

“Where did you learn to do that?” she whispered, her low voice blending with the lapping of the water against the boat’s hull. 

 

Sandor shifted, not sure he wanted Sansa to know this bit. 

 

“Well, the war with Mexico wasn’t really a war. Not like this shit. A battle would pop up, maybe they’d made a couple raids during the spring. We’d be sent out and then home and then out again, like- like hunting dogs. I couldn’t just sit on my ass and starve between fights, so I ended up as a peacekeeper in a brothel in Atlanta."

 

Sansa’s head lifted off his chest with a jerk. “You learned to- to do  _ that-  _ with, with-”

 

“No! Christ, no,” Sandor said, running a hand down Sansa’s shoulder to comfort them both. “I just learned by listening to the girls. Women like that weren’t going to throw any free attention to a man like this,” he said, jerking his thumb towards his scarred cheek. 

 

Sansa sat quiet for a moment, thinking about it. “Did the ...women who worked there... um. They liked doing what we did?”

 

“It’s hard to say, little bird. They were being paid to do it.” He paused and they lay together in the dark, Sandor searching for the right words. This  _ mattered,  _ she  _ mattered.  _

 

“A few of them enjoyed it. They had toys they would use on each other if they were in the mood. It really can feel good.”

 

“I liked your finger,” said Sansa slowly. “But I’m not sure about your-”

 

“Say it,” Sandor said in a moment of impishness, tickling Sansa along her ribs. “Say cock.”

 

“-about your  _ cock  _ going there,” Sansa said on a giggle. 

 

They fell asleep then, pleasure and euphoria and relief draining away and leaving them deliciously sleepy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite sex scenes that I've ever written. Who knew Sandor had such a filthy mouth?! 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with me! It's wonderful to think that something I wrote is being enjoyed by others. 
> 
> Next chapter S&S spend some more time on the riverboat and Sansa has her first family reunion scene.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First family reunion.

Sandor spent the morning busy with Sam and the rest of the crew, but his mind wasn’t really on his work. He kept wondering about  _ after,  _ what they would do after they got back to Winterfell. Thinking of  _ when  _ was a great improvement over thinking of  _ if,  _ because now Sandor was motivated to plan. 

 

They could probably buy back the cattle from the surrounding farms. They were branded with the plain Stark ‘S’, and probably Sansa’s neighbors- the Umbers and Glovers and Karstarks- would give most of them back if they were allowed to keep a few as payment for their care. 

 

Horses were going to be trickier. They would need a heavy team almost immediately, and eventually they’d need riding mounts to use for cutting the herd and helping to move the cattle from the summer fields to the winter pastures. Well-trained horses always went for good money, and the Starks had created a name for themselves by occasionally selling off a seasoned cutting horse or broodmare. 

 

Finally Sandor was pulled from his brooding by the announcement that all of the cargo for Cairo was off of the boat and everyone had a two hour break until the next load needed to be brought on. 

 

Sansa and Gilly had scurried off to the marketplace, and Sandor had a few errands to run. The first was to the post office, where he painstakingly copied out a letter and sent them to three different addresses. He hated writing- never minded reading, but he’d been yanked from the schoolroom when it became apparent to everyone that his height would make him as much of a threat as his brother.He’d never gotten past the point of scratching his letters on a bit of slate. 

 

That done, Sandor wiped the ink from his fingers and went searching for the apothecary Sansa had visited most of a war before. That was quickly accomplished, but it was the last errand that had sweat breaking out on his upper lip and a knot tightening in his stomach. 

 

Sansa was hoping she and Sandor would have time to walk together on a surface that didn’t rock before the boat continued up the river in the evening. She and Gilly had purchases food and spices and supplies and had loaded everything in the galley. Sandor had finished helping the crew, but she wasn’t sure where he was. She was standing on the deck of the boat, hands on hips, when Sandor called out, “Planning a conquest, Sansa?”

 

She walked down the short flight of steps to join him. “Not if you come quietly.” 

 

They strolled down the gangplank together, able to enjoy the walk in a way they hadn’t for all the nights before. They knew where their next meal was coming from; they knew they would sleep in a bed tonight. They knew they were moving away from the war, and they knew they were going  _ home.  _ As the honey-thick evening light stretched over the town they walked together in silence, arms occasionally bumping as they moved, and Sansa and Sandor enjoyed an hour of peace. 

~~~

 

It only took the riverboat five days to reach Chamberlain. A few travelers from Cairo got off when they stopped halfway for coal and freshwater, and a few other got on. Sansa And Gilly became fast friends, and more often than not they would have little Sam with them. 

 

Sandor had walked into the cozy galley off of the common room one evening to find Sansa sitting on the floor with her back against a cabinet and young Sam in her lap. She’d been playing with a little rag toy (one that Sandor suspected she’d made for him) and Sandor’s gut cramped. She was so young; the first time he’d seen this woman she’d still been young enough to have a doll sit against her pillow when she made her bed in the morning. She’d been sold and married, but that didn’t make her  _ less;  _ it didn’t stop her from being far too good for the likes of him. 

 

It was also just seeing Sansa enamored with a child. She clearly loved little Sam, and he seemed content to sit there against her soft warmth. Sandor knew that if they continued on the way they were (he’d had her every night aboard the boat now, how was a man like him supposed to resist the combination of Sansa Stark  _ and  _ a soft mattress?) there would be a child. He hadn’t seen Sansa drink any more of the pennyroyal tea, and though he knew he should ask her about it he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see the hurt in her eyes and he really, truly did not want to answer her questions. 

 

Sandor didn’t want to admit out loud to  _ anyone,  _ even Sansa, that he thought the Clegane blood was tainted. Men weren’t supposed to be this big; men’s bodies weren’t meant to contain the devilment that caused those of the Clegane line to revel in bloodshed. Maybe having Sansa as a mother would be enough to offset the enormous weight of having a Clegane as a father… but maybe it wouldn’t. 

 

The highlight of the trip for Sandor (other than the nights, for nothing could top the experience of sharing Sansa’s bed) was the experience of getting to steer the boat. It had been a cloudless late-spring morning- the sky a watercolor blue, the trees along the water a lush, pale green decked out as they were in fresh new leaves- and the river had been flat and calm as a mirror. 

 

Sandor had wandered up onto the deck looking for something to do. He’d decided that operating a riverboat was a luxurious life indeed; that it was no wonder Sam Tarley was round and soft. The man had hours of leisure time to spend on his wife or his books. He’d even seen the man reading to little Sam out in the sun one afternoon.  

 

Grey Worm and Sam had been up on the deck, the first mate casually holding the wheel in one hand while he pointed out some landmark to Sam. Sam had finished his conversation with Grey Worm and had turned to Sandor with a smile. “Would you like to steer?” he asked. “It’s a beautiful day for it.” The short man had grinned amiably at the river banks and possibly the water itself before turning back to Sandor. 

 

Sandor wanted to steer. Now that it had been mentioned he was filled with an all-consuming  _ want  _ to see what it took to navigate the boat. Outwardly Sandor scowled and shrugged. “Might as well. Nothing else to do.”  He walked to the wheel, planted his feet, and took over for Grey Worm. 

 

The wood of the wheel was warm and smooth under Sandor’s hands. It had weight too; there was a pressure on his palms that Sandor liked. It reminded him of how a horse would bow its head into the bit at a gallop and how the rider could feel the horse’s movements up the reins. A slight bend was approaching in the river, so Sandor turned the wheel- it lurched a bit, so Sandor corrected back. 

“It’s trickier than it looks,” Sam said. It didn’t seem particularly judging, so Sandor decided it wasn’t worth a reply. 

 

“How do you know where it’s safe to go? Aren’t there shallow patches?”

 

Sam’s face lit up with what Sandor recognized as eagerness to impart learned facts. “Well, it depends on the part of the river. The Mississippi south of Memphis is wide enough that people have put in markers that guide a boat through the deep parts.”

 

That made sense and Sam didn’t get long-winded about it, so Sandor ventured another question. “What about up here? How do you know?” (Sandor wouldn’t let himself picture a boat crashing into a log or sand shoal, he just wouldn’t.)

 

“We have charts.” Sam led Sandor to a little cabinet built into the prow of the ship. It opened to reveal silvery little instruments and oilskin poches. Sam unrolled a map from its covering to show Sandor a map of the Missouri river from Cairo to {Somewhere}. Sandor spent the morning learning about soundings and navigation and calculating speed in knots. When Sandor and Sam went inside to find Gilly and Sansa for lunch Sansa asked what he’d done that morning. 

 

“I had the help for a bit,” was Sandor’s answer. Sansa had smiled at him. 

 

Chamberlain was much like Cairo. It was located along a major trade route, and was one of the last stops a large boat could make on the river. It had started out as a cavalry fort in the fight against the Native Americans and had grown into an important trading post. The streets were muddy and crowded, but not with soldiers. It seemed the war had left this mostly untouched. 

 

Sansa and Gilly sniffled into each other’s shoulders. “You’ll write, won’t you,” said Sansa as she hugged the shorter woman.

 

“Of course. And you’ll come visit us once in awhile,” Gilly said.

 

Sandor shook Sam’s hand, and the other man smiled up at him. “I’d like it if you came back as well,” he said. “The door is always open.”

 

Reaper was collected from the stall in the stern of the boat. He was prancing and frisky so Sandor and Sansa both walked down the gangplank with Reaper at their side. 

 

“I’ll miss them,” said Sansa quietly as they turned onto the main road. 

 

“We might see them again,” said Sandor, knowing it was likely a lie. 

 

“What now?” asked Sansa as they walked past shops and taverns and boarding houses. “Should we pick up supplies? Or a horse for me, maybe?”

Sandor considered this. He didn’t know if Sansa still had any money left, but he had the money from the Tarleys. Probably they could get some flour and another cookpot for the road.

 

“Supplies,” he said. 

 

They tied Reaper outside the dry goods store and wandered in. It smelled of peppermints and leather and of Winter Town, and Sansa was homesick all over again. They haggled over flour and a small pot that could be secured to a saddle. Sandor bought an extra pouch of ammunition for his pistol and, at the last minute, picked up another lump of soap.

 

The returned to Reaper and tucked their purchases into the saddlebags (his and hers, now). Sandor eyed the great black horse and considered. “Probably we should get you a horse. Reapers had some miles put on him.” Sandor rubbed the horse’s neck and mentally tacked on  _ and so have I.  _

 

The livery stable was a few streets over. Almost all of the young horses had been sent to the war, and most of the mounts were hacks for rent and owned by the stable. Sansa finally settled on a liver colored mare that the stable owner claimed was twelve. Sandor made his own inspection and begrudgingly corroborated the owner’s age estimate. They paid six dollars for her, as well as a dollar for her saddle, and walked away poorer but satisfied with their purchase. 

 

“What are you going to call this one?”

 

“I haven’t decided yet,” Sansa replied. 

 

They walked the horses to the edge of town, intending to let them sniff and paw at each other before getting on to ride away. 

 

“Did you hear that?” Sansa asked, turning a little to look back down the street. 

 

“What?” asked Sandor, his hand moving without thought to the butt of his gun. 

 

“Sansa!”

 

That time Sandor heard it too. They both turned around to look down the street. A man was running towards them, a man wrapped in the pieced-together furs and heavy boots of a trapper. 

 

Sansa cocked her head to the side. “Jon?”  she asked. 

 

As the man sprinted towards them Sansa laughed, “Jon!” and dropped the mare’s reins to run towards her laughing brother.  

 

They collided a few feet in front of Sandor and he watched (with suppressed suspicion and jealousy) and the curly-haired bastard of Winterfell held Sansa close and swirled her around; Sansa’s braid becoming a swirling ribbon of color. 

 

“We’d heard you were alive and rode down to find you but you’d gone-”

 

“Where have you been? We hadn’t heard from you in years-” Sansa and Jon said over the other, each babbling to the sibling they were still holding close. 

 

They smiled and took a step back from the other. Sandor saw a thin woman coming down the street towards them and leading two horses. 

 

“Are you staying here somewhere?” Jon asked. “Where can we talk?”

 

The woman leading the horses joined them. She had red hair, maybe a shade or two lighter than Sansa’s, and a pointed elfin face. Jon stepped to her and said, “This is Ygritte. Ygritte, my sister Sansa and…” he glanced at Sandor. 

 

Jon knew who Sandor was. Sandor had been there the last time they were all together, back when Robert had been alive and the Stark family had been whole. 

 

“This is Sandor,” said Sansa firmly. 

 

The four of them ended up walking out of town together. As they went Jon told Sansa that he had heard that one of the Stark daughters was alive and back in Winterfell. One of the rumours said that she was married, some said that she was a captive, some said she wasn’t there at all.

 

“The first two were true,” Sansa said as they all swing up onto their mounts. “Cersei sold me to the Bolton’s after father was killed. Ramsay wed me and brought me back to Winterfell.”

 

Jon’s horse danced sideways after Sansa said that and the little group was quiet until both Jon and his horse were back to a semi-relaxed state. 

 

Jon talked of how life was after leaving with Uncle Benjen to trap in the North. It helped soothe over the awkwardness of this reunion and passed the time until darkness began to fall. Jon talked about hearing mountain lions crying in the mountains and how it sounded like a woman crying. He talked of huge footprints in the snow, and how Benjen and the others wouldn’t discuss them. He talked of how he and Benjen could walk for days and days without seeing even a sign of another human. 

When they stopped to make camp Ygritte slipped away into the brush with a quiver of arrows and a bow nearly as tall as she was. 

 

“How did you meet?” Sansa asked Jon as she collected twigs and pine needles to start a fire. “I didn’t think most trappers took wives. Not that I think you shouldn’t have, I was just wondering..” she trailed off awkwardly. She was nervous and uncomfortable. She hadn’t seen Jon in years, and before, when he lived with them as children, she hadn’t always been kind to the Bastard of Winterfell. 

 

Jon didn’t seem to take offense. He just continued to take supplies out of his saddlebags and prep the little pot for cooking. “Trappers don’t usually take wives, that’s true. But in the far, far north, where it’s dark for months at a time in the winter, things are… different.”

 

Jon paused and rocked back on his heels, looking up at the sky. “There aren’t really rules that far north. Well, I suppose there is one rule, and that’s to survive. It supersedes propriety and honor and ...everything.’

 

‘If a trapper ventures that far north in the winter it’s usually to join one of the trapping camps. They join together for the coldest, darkest part of the year. They hunt and eat and sleep together for warmth in huts of stretched skins piled on thickly with snow. It keeps a man sane, that camp.”

 

Sansa desperately wanted to ask  _ sane… from what?  _ But she didn’t want to break the reverie that had fallen over Jon. She blurted out the question anyway when Jon went back to mixing flour with a small portion of lard between his fingers. 

 

“Why did it keep you sane? Sane from what?” 

 

“Imagine not seeing the sun for week. Just night, all the time. There aren’t any other people, and you can’t even tell which way is north or south. It’s just you and the darkness and the animals rustling in the trees.”

 

The hair on Sansa’s body stood up.

 

Ygritte walked back into camp then, two skinned rabbits hanging from her hand. “We call it snow-mad,” she said in her lilting, throaty way. “Trappers who are alone in the darkness and snow for too long, they forget that they’re men. They can forget how to speak, how to do anything but survive.”

 

Sandor stomped back to the center of their camp from where he’d been tending the horses. “Load of rubbish,” he said. “Still telling scary stories to your sister, Stark?” 

 

Jon sent Sandor a hard look, but let the comment pass. 

 

Ygritte picked up the story as she carved chunks of rabbit meat into the pot holding Jon’s little poor-man’s dumplings. “I met Jon in one of those camps. My father was a trapper, and when my mother died he took me with him onto the trails. It was a fine childhood in many ways, and I learned many things.”

 

Sansa was horrified at the idea of a little girl living in the woods with no mother or real family around, but she didn’t want to say anything and offend Jon’s… woman. Neither of them wore a ring. 

 

“I saw Jon at the last deep-winter camp,” she said, pouring water into the pot and adding a pinch of salt and a handful of something green she’d taken from a pocket. “He looked so… proper,” she said, relishing the word. 

 

Jon sent her a hot look, but Sansa knew it wasn’t a look that promised violence, it was a look promising something else entirely. She’d seen it in Sandor’s eyes. 

 

Sandor came back to camp and sat down close to Sansa. They listened together to the rest of the story. 

 

“I’d heard in the camp that a Stark had returned to Winterfell, one of the daughters. No one knew if it was true, but I knew I had to check. I was going to ask Ygritte to run away with me, but she beat me to the punch.” Jon’s dimples showed as he grinned at the redheaded woman. 

 

“We came south to Winterfell, but found a scorched spot where the house stood and the bunkhouse full of dust. We came here to see if anyone knew anything, and ...here you are.”

 

When the stew was done the pot was duly passed from hand to hand around and around the circle until the stew was gone and everyone was full. “That was amazing,” Sansa said as she let herself fall back into the leaves and pine needles on the forest floor. 

 

“If you live your life always moving, you learn to make a decent stew,” said Jon.

 

After the pot was washed and the fire had been built up pallets and blankets were rolled out. Sansa and Sandor lay together on one side of the fire, Ygritte and Jon on the other. 

 

“I’m the one who burned down the house,” Sansa blurted out into the night. 

 

She knew the others were awake, she could hear them shifting under their blankets. It was easier to tell them like this, with Sandor’s arm around her and the soft darkness allowing her to be shy. 

 

Sansa told them about Ramsay and the other men and the laudanum. She told them about the kerosene and the fire and how she just watched and listened to the screams. No one interrupted her, and when it was all done (and Sandor had silently wiped her tears away with his thumb) Jon told her he was proud of her. He said it loudly, without any hesitation, and something that had been coiled tightly inside of her started to relax. She hadn’t felt bad about the men she’d burned, they’d deserved worse, but she’d felt bad about burning down her childhood home to do it. It wasn’t just her home, it had been the home of all of her siblings, and in one moment she’d willingly destroyed it. 

 

Sansa managed to say “thank you” before burrowing into Sandor and trying to fall asleep. Before they left the next morning Sansa said, “Hestia,” to Sandor. 

 

“What?” Sandor looked over reaper at Sansa.

 

“I’m naming the mare. She’s Hestia, goddess of hearth and home.”

 

Sandor had to kiss her then, he just had to kiss this woman who couldn’t just name a horse some normal horse name. 

 

They rode together heading further and further north. The world greened around them, the tiny leaves on the trees opening until the horizon extended in a fuzzy green haze. The two couples became more comfortable with each other, even Jon and Sandor. 

 

Sandor appreciated the fact that Jon didn’t fuck around with male strutting. “Did she pick you?” he’d asked Sandor one evening when they’d been sent gather limbs for the fire. 

 

“I don’t fucking know why, but she did.”

 

“Alright then,” said Jon, and that had been the end of it. 

 

They talked of various things as they traveled. Sandor told them briefly of the war and his desertion, summing up the part he’d played in Sansa’s journey. Ygritte had told them about life in the far north, about the lights that would swirl overhead and howling they’d hear on the wind. Sansa and Jon would take turns telling stories of how life was growing up in Winterfell; how Arya would tag after the older boys and how Sansa was the easiest to prank. 

 

After a couple weeks- it was harder to keep track of time on the road like this; it was easier for Sansa to understand how trappers might go mad- they neared the turn off for the hot springs cave. 

 

Sasa thought they sounded divine. The nights were still cool, and she could get  _ clean  _ again. She just didn’t know how to tell Jon to keep riding home. 

 

Jon had apparently had the same issue. When they rode to the turnoff to head to the hotsprings both Sansa and Jon pulled their horses up. Ygritte’s mare kept moving, pacing around the edge of the little group. 

 

“Ygritte and I are going to-”

 

“Sandor and I-”

 

Sansa just  _ knew _ she and Jon were trying to say the same thing. She also knew that he knew it, and she blushed crimson, her whole face and neck heating. 

 

“Do I look like that when I blush?” asked Ygritte. 

 

“I don’t know, as I’ve never seen you do it,” Jon replied dryly. 

 

“Why don’t you two-” Sansa started, turning her horse to move down the road. 

 

“We’ll all go, I don’t see what there is to be ashamed of,” said Ygritte, and she kicked her horse into a rocking canter down the road to the springs. 

 

Sansa kept her horse beside Reaper. “We could turn around and leave. I mean, I don’t know what they’re planning, and, and I don’t want…” she trailed off, her face looking dangerously red. 

 

Sandor didn’t want her to have a stroke, so he entered the conversation. “On the riverboat, you remember I told you I worked as a guard in a brothel, right?”

 

Sansa nodded, confused and then worried by this turn in the conversation. 

 

Sandor continued, “It can be very, uhh, stimulating. To watch other people, or know they’re watching you. It can’t hurt you, and if it’s too terrible we’ll leave, right?”

 

Sansa nodded. “That’s true, we could always leave. No blizzard this time.” She sent Sandor a small smile, and he was suddenly all the more eager to return to the springs. 

 

“It’ll be steamy in there anyway, so they won’t be able to see much.” He offered this as one last piece of consolation. 

 

The kicked the horses and rode until they caught up with Jon and Ygritte.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know where this is going.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hot Spings, Part II.  
> A proposal.

It was awkward, oh god it was awkward, and Sansa regretted it immediately. They left the horses on the path just outside the cave and the four of them stood inside the opening breathing the warm, humid air. Ygritte solved the problem by kicking off her boots and tugging off her clothes. Jon shrugged and followed suit.

 

Sandor was next, tugging off his boots and digging in his saddlebag until he came up with soap he’d purchased in Chamberlain. Sansa was still standing uncertainly by the entrance to the cave so he went to her and nibbled on her neck, moving to whisper in her ear, “I get the impression they’re planning on staying with us in Winterfell. They’ll be making babes and fucking in the hayloft, so we better get used to this now.”

 

Whatever he said worked, because Sansa kissed him back when he moved his lips to hers. When he and Sansa splashed into the springs he threw a sliver of soap at Jon, who caught it. “Was, you shits,” he said.

 

Sandor dunked Sansa. She’d been so shy last time they’d been here, and the memories of working through that bashfulness had haunted him the width and the breadth of the fucking country. She came up sputtering and laughing, and settled between his knees so he could shampoo her hair. It stretched to the curve of her arse now, and Sandor fought the urge to wash his cock with it. 

 

“I need to trim this,” said Sansa, and Sandor felt a moment of panic, thinking maybe she’d gleaned his thoughts. 

 

“It’s getting raggedy at the ends.”

 

Sandor managed to wash himself and Sansa thoroughly before chucking the soap back towards the abandoned saddlebags. 

 

Sansa had been very pointedly Not Watching Ygritte and her cousin-turned-brother on the other side of the pool, closer to the spray of the hot falls. They were washing each other and murmuring; Sansa knew she heard a giggle. When she saw their sliver of soap swirl by her on an eddy in the water she snatched it and tossed it onto the rock rim of the spring. Sandor told her to rinse and it took several deep breaths and submersions to get all the soap out of her hair. By then Sandor was clean and he was tugging Sansa against him. 

 

Sansa moved so that she could sit on the groove that ran around the edge of the pool. When Sandor came towards her she grabbed his erection and moved her other hand up to tease his nipples, falling into a rhythm that had his hips thrusting into her hands. 

 

Sansa could hear Sandor breathing hard above, she could hear Jon’s murmurs and gasps, but what kept spiking her own arousal was the sound of Ygritte’s sharp wines. 

 

“Sansa, Sansa you have to stop,” rasped Sandor. She tightened her grip and continued, moving her free hand to toy with her own nipples. She’d learned how much Sandor liked to see her touch herself, it got him every time. 

 

Sandor closed his eyes and jerked his hips as he came. 

 

“I thought,” he said, bringing his face closer to Sansa’s, “that I told you to stop.” 

 

Sansa shivered- she loved that tone, it meant something  _ wonderful  _ was getting ready to happen to her- and bit Sandor’s lip. He growled and pinched one of her breasts,  _ hard.  _

 

“You’ll have to pay for that,” he said, and tossed her up onto the edge of the pool. She let her legs fall open and gasped when Sandor’s mouth found her kitty. 

 

She twined her fingers into Sandor’s hair and remembered the last time they’d been in this cave. He’d had to coax her into it, but now it was her very favorite treat. 

 

She closed her eyes and plucked at her nipples. She could feel the now familiar and welcomed tension low in her belly. Her head lolled to the side, and when she opened her eyes she saw Ygritte watching her. She was sitting on the edge of the pool with Jon moving between her legs. She was watching Sansa and holding Jon’s head to her breast. 

 

When Ygritte saw Sansa watching she popped a finger into her own mouth, trailed it down and around Jon’s hips, and finally into the cleft of his bum. Jon’s shoulder’s tensed and then he was moving all the faster. Ygritte’s head tipped back and Sansa could see the cords in her neck. “Oh, yes,” she said, “Yes, yes yes.” Jon stiffened, and Sansa was flooded with heat. 

 

Between Sansa’s legs Sandor stopped his attentions. Sansa looked down at him. “What’s wrong?” she whispered. She worried that she’d been caught, she worried that Sandor didn’t want her watching. 

 

“That wasn’t your punishment, I know that’s your favorite thing,” said Sandor as he tugged her off the rock and into the water. 

He turned and faced Sansa towards Jon and Ygritte. “This is your punishment, though I think you’ll like this too,” he whispered in her ear. 

 

He thrust into her from behind. He had one hand around her waist to keep her from floating away, and the other hand toyed with her nipples. She felt even more full this way, full and tight, and she groaned. 

 

Sandor began a series of thrusts that were slow enough to allow Sansa to feel every single inch, but that were hard enough to make her breasts sway. Her pleasure and arousal and awareness was only heightened when Jon and Ygritte arranged themselves in the same way as Sandor and Sansa. She realized everyone could see her like this, could see her wrapped around Sandor’s cock and lost in her own wanting. 

 

Sandor pulled her up against him so that her back was pressed against his chest. He kept thrusting, and slid his hand up so that his massive fingers rested over her throat, his thumb caressing her pulse point. 

 

“Look at them,” he whispered. “Look at them watching you, at them wanting you. I’ve always wanted to fuck you in front of a mirror, I’ve wanted to see your face when you see yourself bouncing on my cock.”

 

Sansa whimpered, and Sandor’s fingers caressed her throat.    
  


“See her? She looks a little bit like you through the steam and the spray. Look at the way her tits sway, look at the way her hairs curls in the water. Her face is flushed just like yours, and her cunt is red, just like yours.”

 

Sansa was whimpering now but unable to say anything (not that she’d want to) and was absolutely captivated by the woman in front of her and the man inside her. 

 

“I want them to see you come,” he said in her ear, his voice deep and rough. “I want them to see the way the pink creeps up over your tits and neck and cheeks. I want them to see your eyes go dreamy and the way your whole body clamps down on my cock like it’s the cure for all your ills.”

 

Sansa came on a thin cry and felt Sandor follow her over the edge too- his fingers clamped down on her and she felt the tell-tale heat spreading inside her. 

 

When she opened her eyes she say Ygritte shaking against Jon, a smile on her face, and Jon had his eyes squinched shut. They floated in the water after, just trying to catch their breaths. 

 

It was Ygritte who broke the silence. “I met a woman once who talked about hot springs like this.” 

 

Sansa moved to sit on the little rock ledge so she wouldn’t have listen to Ygritte though the water. 

 

The other woman continued, “She said that once dragons roamed over the world, great scaled beasts with wings like bats; wings that could block the sun away from a whole town when a dragon swept over.’

 

‘There were four dragons in the world- one for the northeast, one for the northwest, and one each for the southern portions of the world. They were territorial and jealous creatures, and they would endlessly patrol their borders before returning to their layers to rest.’

 

Jon got out of the water with almost no splash and he padded away to their packs. 

 

Ygritte went on: “Viserion was the dragon who guarded the territory we live in now. One day, while he rested, the great Drogon flew across the seas to find him. Drogon was known as  _ The Winged Dread,  _ for he was powerful and ruthless; he was so large that he could make it around the world in a day and a night. His great black scales seemed to absorb sunlight, and night he could fly nearly unseen. 

 

“He crept into the lair of the sleeping Viserion, but before he could tear out Viserion’s heart the other dragon woke. Their battle was fierce and long; the heat of their flames melted and reformed rock into mountains and melted glaciers into lakes.’ 

 

“After seven days and seven nights it became clear that the dragons were evenly matched. Drogon was stronger and larger, but Viserion was quick and clever and he loved the land he was defending.’ 

 

“They fell together, streaming tears and the fire that was their blood, and so hot were the flames that they sank into the soil and rock beneath them. Their tears pooled here, and beneath these pools the souls of the dragons still fight, their breath and flame heating the pools from beneath.”

 

The group sat in silence after that listening to the rushing of the water over the falls. 

 

“Bullshit,” said Sandor at last. “It makes more sense that these are the entrance to hell than that they’re the resting place of a couple bat-lizards.”

 

“I don’t know,” said Jon from the edge of a pool. He held out a blanket and wrapped Ygritte in it when she stepped from the water. “I heard that a farmer found a skull bigger than a sheep not far from here.”

 

“Bullshit,” Sandor said again, and he boosted Sansa out of the water before hopping out himself. 

 

Jon and Sansa washed their clothes while Ygritte hunted and Sandor checked on the horses. 

 

“What are you going to wear?” asked Sansa, scandalized. 

 

“The clothes god gave me,” said the other girl. “Just think of me as Eve.” She slipped out barefoot with the leather of her quiver resting over her back. 

 

On the road Sansa had asked her why Ygritte preferred arrows to a gun. 

 

“That’s easy,” she said. “With this I make no noise, with a rifle I’ve scared all the wildlife away whether I make the shot or not. I also don’t have to buy shot for this- I can make my own, over and over, and never have to set foot in a shop.”

 

Sansa decided that she wanted to learn to do that, too. 

 

Ygritte returned with two ducks and the bottom half of her covered in pond muck. “That’s the best part of this,” she said, scrubbing happily. “Normally I can’t get to the duck, but today we can feast.”

 

The roasted the duck outdoors, just past the mouth of the cave. Sansa and Ygritte had scrounged around the pond and had found leeks and little wild radishes. Those were roasted with the duck, and everyone’s mouth watered from the smell. 

 

Everyone’s clothes were still wet, and Sansa wondered if this  _ was  _ how Adam and Eve had felt. Ygritte was naked and seemingly comfortable. Jon and Sandor had blankets wrapped around their waists, and Sansa had recreated her blanket toga from the first time she and Sandor had visited. 

 

“We should do this every year, no matter what,” said Ygritte. “Everyone needs time to fuck and be free.”

 

“What about the animals and the children, if there are children?” asked Sansa. 

 

“Ygritte shrugged. “There’s always a way,” she said. 

 

Sansa thought that a scheduled annual trip for sex and relaxation sounded decadent, probably too decadent, but it was a wonderful thought. 

 

Everyone splashed into the water one more time in the morning before redressing and continuing on their way. This time Sansa watched boldly, and even put on a bit of a show when she sucked Sandor’s cock between her lips. Jon had growed and Ygritte had whispered  _ good,  _ which had made Sansa even wetter than she’d been. 

 

This time it would only take four days to get from the spring to Winter Town. The roads were better in the summer and they weren’t trying to move an entire herd of horses. They chatted between themselves and laughed a lot. The time in the springs had chased away the last of their awkwardness; now they were family. 

 

Two nights before they should reach Winter Town Sandor came to find Sansa where she was refilling their waterskins by the stream. When she’d corked the last one he’d drawn her into his lap where he sat on a large moss-covered rock. 

 

“Sansa, I need to ask you something.”

 

Sansa drew her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. She waited another moment and then said, “One typically has to ask the question to get an answer. What’s the matter, Sandor?”

 

Sandor took a deep breath and blurted out, “I think we should get married. In Winter Town, two days from now.”

 

This was the last thing Sansa had expected. 

 

“Why?” was the thing that made it out of her mouth first. 

 

“Because we’re going to be so busy rebuilding and getting ready for Winter that we should get it done before all that begins.”

 

“Why do you want to get married?” asked Sansa, a warm feeling spreading though her. “You’ve never mentioned it.”

 

“So what if I’ve never mentioned it, I’m asking now. Do you want to get married?”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa, kissing him hard.  “Now ask me properly.”

 

Sandor looked pained. “Will you marry me Sansa?”

 

“Yes!” she kissed him and started undoing his trousers. 

 

She took him on that rock with her skirts bunched between them. “It’s a good thing you’re marrying me,” she panted. “Because I’m not sure we could stop this.”

 

Jon rolled his eyes when Sansa and Sandor returned to camp looking thoroughly rumpled an hour after they’d left. 

 

Over dinner Sandor made his announcement in typical Sandor fashion. “We’re getting married in Wintertown. Two days.” He took a bite of rabbit. 

 

Jon grinned and smacked him on the back and Ygritte laughed and hugged Sansa. They spent the rest of the evening in good cheer, and Sansa fell asleep clutching Sandor’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello... ::looks around:: is anybody out there?
> 
> Next chapter should be pretty obvious!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SANSAN WEDDING!

The little group stopped just a few miles south of Winter Town. “I don’t like it,” Sandor growled. “I don’t think we should leave you alone in the woods.”

 

Ygritte rolled her eyes. “What is going to happen to us? Oh, a spider!” she shrieked, pretending to faint dramatically. 

 

Sandor just glowered at her. 

 

Sansa turned to give Sandor a peck on the cheek before sliding off Tia (Sansa had decided that maybe Hestia was too formal for everyday use). “It’s bad luck for a groom to see his bride on the wedding day. Go on, you’ll be close enough to hear us should anything happen.”

 

Sandor didn’t move, so Ygritte solved the problem by smacking Reaper on his hindquarters. He trotted off, and Jon’s horse patiently followed. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Jon told his sister. 

 

Sansa and Ygritte quickly made camp. They had a small fire going when the light faded fully, and they were content to much on the vegetables Ygritte had found the day before. 

 

“Are you nervous?” Ygritte asked, laying down on her pallet. 

 

“A little,” Sansa admitted. “My last marriage didn’t work out.” Sansa had told Jon and Ygritte of Ramsay- just the outline of what had happened, but details weren’t necessary for the two to understand that ‘bad’ was an understatement.

 

“Then why do this?” Ygritte questioned. “You don’t need to. We couldn’t pry that man away from you with a crowbar and a tub of goose grease.” 

 

She was smiling at Sansa, so Sansa lay down on her own pallet by the other woman. “I want the words, I suppose,” she said. 

 

“Words,” Ygritte scoffed. “Why do you southerlings need words? You’re a woman, he’s a man. He keeps you if he’s strong, and if you are stronger than he, well. You find another man. A  _ stronger  _ man.” Ygritte grinned at Sansa as they lay in circle of warmth and light created by the flames. 

 

Sansa blushed furiously. Ygritte tended to find all of the… irrationalities in the traditions of what Sansa had always thought of as polite society. 

 

“It’s bad, if you don’t have the words,” Sansa said slowly, feeling the wrongness even as she said it. 

 

“Is what you’ve done wrong? Is loving your man wrong, or letting him love you?” Ygritte moved a little closer to Sansa where they lay on their pallets. 

 

“I don’t think so,” Sansa admitted. “But… it will make things easier. Will make our children’s lives easier.”

 

“Aye, that’s what Jon said,” Ygritte said, the flames making her hair look like burnished copper in the light.

 

“You’re married?” said Sansa, somehow more shocked at this than anything else Ygritte has said. 

 

“Aye, we said the words. Not in one of your churches, but under the stars like the first men. It was important to Jon, so I let him have his way in that.” 

 

They lay quiet again, listening to the crackle of the flames and the whir of crickets off by the stream. 

 

“It means something to me, too,” Sansa admitted quietly. “I want to make that promise out loud, and I want him to promise me.”

 

“There’s the meaning, then,” said Ygritte in her throaty, smokey voice. “Promises have meaning.”

 

They fell asleep facing each other, each a curve of shadows and fire-red hair. 

 

~~~

Sansa married Sandor in the little white church in Winter Town. She’d dreamed of her wedding since she was a girl, and it had always been in this little church with its pretty glass windows; the church where her mother married her father. That was where the similarities between Sansa’s girlhood dreams and her true wedding ended. 

 

Sansa didn’t have on a flowing white dress; she was married in the worn, dirt and blood-stained dress that she’d had on everyday for months and months. The way Sandor’s eyes followed her made her feel beautiful. 

 

Sansa didn’t have a bouquet of roses from her mother’s garden, the blue roses known to grow heartily even here, where it was cool for most months of the year. Instead she carried a small clump of daisies that had been picked by Jon and bound with a bit of lace Ygritte had…  _ acquired _ from somewhere. She’d come trotting up to the front door of the church with a foot of off-white lace balled in her hand.    
  


“Where did you get that?” Jon asked, squinting at his wife. 

 

“Nowhere important,” she said back, tugging him close for a kiss. 

 

Sansa wound the lace around her flowers and they headed together into the church. Her mother and father weren’t sitting proudly in the front pew of the church watching as their baby became a woman; they’d never set foot in this church again. Instead Jon watched her, those deep brown eyes sad, and Ygritte- Sansa’s newest sister- let her eyes twinkle. 

 

Most importantly, Sansa wasn’t marrying a blond, fairy-tale prince who would take her away to somewhere warm and remote. She was marrying Sandor, the man who had tried to protect her from Joffrey, the man who had gone with her through a war and back, the man who loved her. 

 

Sansa loved him, and that was enough; it was more than dresses and dreams and pretty things. Love- at least  _ this  _ love for  _ this  _ man- was sturdy and safe and warm. She married him in the little white church in her faded and stained dress with a bouquet of wild daisies, and it was perfect. 

 

When the pastor asked if they had rings to exchange Sansa started to shake her head  _ no  _ but Sandor stopped her. He pulled a tiny linen bag from his pocket and tugged out a gold band. He nodded to the holy man who continued the service, and pushed the ring over the knuckle of her third finger when the minister gave him the cue. That’s when Sansa started to cry.

 

After it was done Sansa and Sandor were presented with the church registry. It was old, the leather cover dried and faded, the pages yellowed with age. The pastor turned to the half-empty page, dipped the pen in ink, and handed it to Sandor. He signed and the pen was passed to Sansa. She neatly wrote  _ Sansa Clegane  _ beside her husband’s-  _ her  _ husband’s- name and blew on the ink to dry it. 

 

Before the pastor could close the book she turned back a page, then two. On the bottom of that page were her parent’s names and the date of their wedding. There was her mother’s familiar neat signature and her father’s typical scrawl. Sansa caressed the letters for one brief moment before clasping her husband’s hand and  turning to walk out of the church. 

 

“I imagine you’d like us to hang back a bit,” said Jon after hugging Sansa.

 

“That ship sailed,” said Sandor bluntly (but with a certain gleam in his eye), and they all recalled the activities in the heat and the steam of those caves. “You two go on ahead, and we’ll catch up tomorrow.”

 

Ygritte and Jon saddled and mounted their horses. Ygritte turned and blew Sansa a kiss and a wink as they rode down the hard-packed dirt of Main Street on the way home to Winterfell. 

 

“She’s something,” commented Sandor as they watched the horses trot away. 

 

“So she is,” agreed Sansa, suddenly shy. 

 

“I’ve got some cash left,” said Sandor. “We could have dinner and a night in the hotel.”

 

“Let’s save it,” said Sansa, emboldened by Ygritte and her parents’ memories. She was strong, she’d realized. She was so much stronger than she’d ever thought, and strong women could ask for what they wanted. “I want one more night with you under the stars.”

 

The rode out of town just a ways before getting off the road and looking for a spot to camp. “Where did you get the ring?” Sansa asked, toying with it. It foreign and new and Sansa loved it. 

 

“In Cairo,” he said. “While you shopped for supplies.”

 

“You knew then?” Sansa asked, sliding off her horse and forgetting to loosen the girth. 

 

“I’ve known since I left you sitting on a fucking porch in Georgia,” said Sandor. “I just didn’t know if  _ you  _ knew. It fucking took you long enough.”

 

He kissed her then and kissed her  _ hard  _ with none of the newly-wedded gentleness that he’d hoped to show her tonight. 

 

“I knew on a porch in Georgia when I watched you walk away,” Sansa gasped as Sandor moved to unbutton her dress and she tugged at his belt. “I knew then too.”

 

Whatever else she was going to say was silenced by another hard kiss. Sandor had backed her into a tree and it was rough against her shoulders where her dress gaped open but she didn’t know or care. Sandor had his hands on the trunk on either side of her head and he was biting her lip and this was  _ so much better  _ than she’d dreamed her wedding night could be. 

 

“Take this off or I will tear it off of you,” Sandor growled into her throat as he tugged on her dress. She managed to work her arms out of the sleeves (Sandor was so very distracting) and when the dress pooled around her feet Sandor’s mouth had already moved to her breast. This was one of her favorite sensations, the feel of his mouth hot and wet on her nipple. Each tug coiled little muscles low in her belly, and with Sandor’s usual instinctive timing he roughly shoved his fingers up and into her. It was a hard enough motion that the heel of his hand hit her clit and sent sparks sizzling into her bloodstream. 

 

Sansa whispered “again,” and the last tiny bit of control that Sador had over himself broke. He bit her nipple and thrust his hand into her hard once, twice, before yanking his cock from his trousers and slamming himself home inside Sansa. 

 

She breathed  _ oh, god yes,  _ into Sandor’s ear as he lifted her off the ground and held her against him. Those long, made-for-fucking legs came around his waist and he moved against her in long, hard thrusts. 

 

Sansa’s back was scratching against the bark of the tree, but she didn’t notice the pain. “Sandor, yes, Sandor, oh god,” she was chanting under her breath. 

 

Sandor pulled away from the tree and sank to his knees, his cock still deep in Sansa’s heat. She rode him then, a Valkyrie in flight, her hair the color of a sunrise. 

 

“Sandor-” she gasped as she felt the orgasm rise up to take her. “I love you, oh, Sandor-”

 

And then he was following her into pleasure, his deep dark eyes focused on her flushed and perfect face. 

 

“I love you too,” he said in the glow, as their sweat cooled on their skin. 

 

Sansa smiled at her husband. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter today, but a sweet one I think. Sorry for forgetting to post yesterday!
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with me! I appreciate all of you. 
> 
> Next chapter we return to Winterfell and Sansa and Ygritte have a *moment*! See you Monday!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Visits to the neighbors.   
> Sansa and Ygritte have a ~moment~.

They bought a wagon and heavy team in Wintertown. They went for far more than they should, but Winter Town didn’t have any competition for miles around. Sandor griped about it, but the team was docile and strong and would serve their purpose. 

 

The sun was high and the air was warm by the time Sansa and Sandor rode down the final slope into the little valley where Winterfell had once stood. Jon and Ygritte had taken the straw ticks out of the bunkhouse and had leaned them against the outside of the barn so they could be beaten in the sunshine. Jon’s horse was saddled and waiting in the little pen on the far side of the barn. Ygritte was coming up the hill with a bucket of water, but turned to walk to the pen when she caught sight of Sansa and Sandor. 

 

“Get a late start, did you,” she commented slyly. Sansa blushed and Sanor ignored her. 

 

“Where is Jon going?” Sansa asked as she swung off Tia. 

“Scouting,” called Jon’s voice from the barn. “Hullo, sister,” he said, kissing Sansa’s cheek. “I’m going to check on the hay fields. They should have been fine without us, and hopefully we can cut them in the fall.”

 

He kissed Ygritte, swung onto his horse, and trotted east. 

 

Sandor and Sansa put up their horses. She remembered that first morning after she’d burnt the house; how she’d sat in the tack room and talked of Ramsay and her crime. She felt like she’d lived a hundred lifetimes since then. She’d loved a man and survived a war and learned to trust herself. She’d married again, this time of her own choice, and she’d found a brother and gained a new sister. All of those things had left marks on her, big and little, and Sansa realized she rather liked the person she’d become. 

 

Sansa helped Ygritte beat out the mattresses and scrub the bunkhouse. It was the same as she remembered, but different now. It felt smaller than it had before, and less… something. Less critical, perhaps? The last time she’d been in here the bunkhouse had been all that had seemingly stood between her and homeless, freezing doom. Now she knew that she could do without out it if she must.

 

That first week flew by. They made two trips to town for seeds and canvas and pots and flour and chicken and other staples. Sansa and Ygritte sewed another mattress out of the canvas and stuffed it with hay from the barn loft to replace one of the ones burned by Sansa along with the Boltons. Jon had insisted that they buy enough canvas to make two larger mattresses “when the house was finished.” 

 

Sansa hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Oh, she’d had a vague notion of rebuilding the house, but it hadn’t been corporeal. She’d been focused on being home, on waking up safe and warm and comfortable, on eating three meals a day and bathing whenever she chose. 

 

“We need to get the cattle back,” Jon said over dinner one night. “We won’t be able to support the ranch for long without income from the cattle.”

 

“Do you think one of the neighbors took them?” Sansa asked. “Maybe the Karstarks or the Umbers?” 

 

Jon took another bite of cornbread. “Probably both. I expect the cattle wandered onto their property sometime after you left.”

 

“Cows are cows,” said Ygritte. “How do you propose to tell the beasts apart?” (When Ygritte was tired her vowels became even more round, tonight they made her sentence sound like  _ coos ‘re coos).  _

 

“When the cows are a year old and large enough to send them to pasture we brand them on the flank.” 

 

Ygritte, the most skilled hunter of their group, blanched at the thought. 

 

“We’ll go tomorrow,” said Sandor to Jon. “You know how to get on these ranches without being shot?”

 

Jon nodded. 

 

“I’m coming too,” said Sansa, miffed that she was being left out. “They’ll listen to me.”

 

The men just looked at her. 

 

“I’m a Stark of Winterfell,” she said exasperated. “And I’ve seen them more recently than you have. Ramsay had them come to dinner to see if he could… turn their loyalties. They’ll need reassurance that he’s gone.”

 

The men mumbled agreements and soon everyone was crawling into bed. Sansa couldn’t sleep with Sandor- there was no way he could share one of the small straw ticks with anyone, even if they put it on the floor- and she missed his heat and arms and the feeling of safety she had whenever she slept next to her husband- her  _ husband.  _

 

Sansa hadn’t anticipated the fact that she would need to do some mental recalibration to adjust to married life. The word  _ husband  _ held only embarrassment and sadness and pain, but she expected that soon when she thought the word it would bring only images of Sandor.  _ A real bed would help with that  _ she thought to herself before falling asleep. 

 

They rose early and ate a fast breakfast of hard boiled eggs. Ygritte helped to saddle the horses and then the three of them were off, riding into the clear summer morning. 

 

They called on the Karstarks first. Local legend said that the youngest son of a long-ago generation of Starks had won a huge portion of land from their neighbor. The property had been referred to as “Karl Stark’s piece” until the words had blurred together and stuck. 

 

Alys Karstark answered the door when the knocked. She had been friend’s with Sansa’s mother, but she didn’t invite them into the house. 

 

“Hello, Mrs. Karstark,” said Sansa. “You remember Jon, don’t you?”

 

The grey-haired woman nodded and turned her eyes to Sandor. 

 

“This is my husband, Sandor. He’s the man I chose. Ramsay Bolton and his men are dead; I saw the bodies myself.”

 

The woman gave the little group a long look before sighing and stepping back. “You all better come in. I’ll call Rickard, he’ll want to hear this.”

 

They talked around the heavy table in the Karstark kitchens. That was a good thing, thought Sansa. If they’d been asked into the parlor it would have had an entirely different tone; kitchens were for families and friends. 

 

“There was a fire one night, after the men had been drinking. I woke up in time to get out, but all of the men, including Ramsay, were the worst for it.” 

 

Rickard nodded, his fingers toying with the bottom of his great grey beard. “I rode over and saw the scorched earth when the cattle started coming over. Where’d you get off to?”

 

“We went south to look for any of my siblings,” Sansa lied. It rolled easily off her tongue, and no one had any reason to question her story. 

 

“I reckon you didn’t come just to give us the news,” said Alys. “You here about the cattle?”

 

The two Karstarks looked at each other had a split-second non-verbal conversation common among couples who have been long and happily (or at least contentedly) married. 

 

“Yes ma’am, we are,” said Jon. “Our parents were good neighbors to you, and you were always good neighbors to them. How many cattle came to you?” 

 

Rickard looked at Jon for a beat too long. “Little over fifteen hundred; we reckon it was about half your herd.”

 

“We’ll let you keep three hundred in exchange for access to your stud bull for the next two years,” said Jon. “We’ll have to rebuild our herd, and we don’t want to weaken it with inbreeding.”

 

“That’s a fair deal,” said Rickard, standing and offering Jon his hand. He shook Sandor’s as well, and only raised an eyebrow when Sansa claimed a handshake too.

 

Things went much the same in the Umber household. They were told the story of Winterfell’s fall, Sansa’s trip to look for her siblings, and her return to the north. They had a thousand head of Stark cattle, and Jon allowed them to keep two hundred. Greatjon Umber even loaned them his youngest son (Smalljon) and one of their ranch hands to help rebuild and guide the cattle into the spring pastures higher up in the hills. 

 

As they were leaving Ruth Umber ugged Sansa. “I’m so glad you escaped,” she said, and Sansa was touched. She thought that, once things were more stable, she might enjoy riding to the Umber household and having tea with Miss Ruth. 

 

The final household was the furthest away. The Hornwoods were one of the smaller northern houses and chose not to mingle with their neighbors. 

 

Rebecca Hornwood wouldn’t let them into the house. She had them wait on the back porch while she fetched her husband Harold from the barn. 

 

He wandered to the group from Winterfell and stopped a few feet away, spitting a stream of putrid brown tobacco juice onto the ground. 

 

“You’re back with another man,” he said to Sansa. She bristled but calmly recited the story she’d told to the other two houses. 

 

Jon asked about the cattle, but Harold refused to answer. Instead he looked at Sansa again. “Still all high and mighty, are you? You’re used goods.”

 

Sandor had been bored all afternoon. He hadn’t really needed to come with Sansa, but he’d thought that introducing himself to the neighbors in a non-threatening way with Sansa and Jon was likely the best idea. Now he snapped out of his daydream to glare at the man in front of him. 

 

Hornwood turned to Jon. “Possession is nine tenths of the law, and I don’t see you here with any army or judge telling me I have to give those cattle back.”

 

“Those cattle belong to the Stark ranch. They have been marked as such, and branding has been seen by law as a stamp of ownership for years. We will be claiming what is ours,” said Sansa. 

 

“No one asked you, bitch,” said Harold, and then he he was sailing across the yard to land on his back. Sandor strode towards him, snarling  _ apologize.  _

 

“You assaulted me on my own land,” said Hornwood, holding his bleeding nose. “You won’t be getting one goddamned steer back, I’ll see that you won’t.”

 

Jon and Sansa tugged Sandor back to their horses and argued him down from murdering their neighbor. 

 

“We’ll get the cattle back. Just wait.”

 

The Karstarks and Umbers drove their portions of the herd in a two days later. Jon and Sansa explained to them what had happened with the Hornwoods. The Karstarks nodded sympathetically and said they wouldn’t listen to any rumors they heard around. Gretjon Umber offered to come on the raid himself. 

 

“I was hoping you’d say that,” said Jon, smiling. “How does tonight work for you?”

 

“Tonight is going to suit me fine.”

 

Sansa and Ygritte agreed to stay behind the night that Jon and Sandor and the Umbers went to get the Stark cattle back. The kissed their men and waved them off and settled down in the gentle night air to wait.

 

“Do you think it will work?” asked Ygritte, sipping a cup of coffee. 

 

“I’m sure it will,” said Sansa. “The best part is that I think they’ll have to take the whole herd, Hornwood’s cattle included. Then in the morning they can sort out which are ours and which need to go back.”

 

“Oh, I wish I could see his face when Hornwood realizes,” sighed Ygritte. 

 

She almost got her wish. The next afternoon Hornwood came storming down to Winterfell’s winter pastures were the cattle were being sorted.  The Stark cattle were being sent up into the summer pastures, and the Hornwood livestock was being held in one of the horse fields. 

 

“You took my herd! You took my fucking herd!” shrieked Hornwood, drawing a gun and pointing it at Jon and Sandor where they stood by the cattle chute. Hornwood reined his horse, causing it to dance sideways and give him a better shot. 

 

The first one went wide, and Jon ducked down behind the fence rails. 

 

Sandor just  _ roared.  _ “It’s been months since I’ve killed a man,” he said, and neatly shot the man through the shoulder. Hornwood fell off his horse and clutched his wound. 

 

“You shot me!”

 

“Yeah, I shot you,” said Sandor, moving to stand over the fallen man. “Don’t make me do it again. My lady- who is so good you shouldn’t even be allowed to look at her-” Sandor kicked the other man’s gun away, “told me that she wouldn’t be happy if I started a feud with our neighbors. We’re going to give you  _ your  _ cattle back, against my better judgement, so you had fucking better let this be the end of the issue.”

 

Jon told Sansa and Ygritte Sandor’s speech over dinner that night. Ygritte hooted with laughter, but Sansa just smiled up at her man. She hadn’t said anything to Sandor about starting a feud, but who was she to naysay his moment of glory. He’d come up with that line all on his own. 

 

Summer went quickly after the cattle was home. The little garden needed tending, miles of fencing needed maintaining, and a house needed building. Jon and Sandor went into the woods and sawed down trees day after day. Once the trees had dried in the sun they would be cut into planks, which would then dry as Jon and Sandor cut more trees. This left Sansa and Ygritte on their own with the bunkhouse and garden and horses most of the time. 

 

“Right here,” Ygritte said, brushing the tip of two fingers across Sansa’s breast. “I had a mark for a week.”

 

Ygritte sat back on the bottom bunk-turned-sofa and smirked. 

 

Sansa blinked. That was all she could manage. 

 

Ygritte leaned closer, her eyes going round and incredulous. “Have you not been wi’ a girl before?”

 

Sansa just blushed, so Ygritte crowed, “You haven’t! You haven’t been with a girl. Why?”

 

She scooted across the cushions to sit close- maybe too close- to the other girl. 

 

“It, it- it isn’t proper. It isn’t proper,” she repeated like a mantra. Maybe if she said it one more time she’d convince herself. 

 

“What’s ‘proper’?” Ygritte asked, leaning even closer to Sansa. “Who decides?”

 

Sansa could feel Ygritte’s breath brushing warm over her nose and lips and chin. “I… I don’t know.” Sansa had never thought of it, not once, and now that was  _ all  _ she could think about. Who decided what was proper? God? The president? Her  _ mother _ ?

 

“We decide,” Ygritte whispered. “We decide what is ‘proper’.”

 

And then Ygritte kissed Sansa. Sansa’s first impression was that it was  _ soft.  _ Her lips were soft, and there was no beard to rub roughly over her chin. Ygritte’s eyes were open, boldly watching Sansa’s expression, and Sansa realized that she was watching her right back. 

 

Ygritte pulled back, cocked her head, and went to move away, but Sansa stopped her and put one hand against the other girl’s cheek. “But… but how do we do this? Without a…” Sansa waved her hand in pointed circles over her groin. 

 

“We don’t need a cock,” Ygritte said in that throaty voice that Sansa had heard her use with Jon. “We have our fingers…” Ygritte trailed the tips of those fingers over Sansa’s collarbone, “and we have our mouths.” 

 

They kissed again, warm and soft, and Ygritte’s tongue sneaked over Sansa’s lip and the top of her own. Heat, now familiar, began to coil low in Sansa’s belly. She ran her hands through Ygritte’s hair and cradled the back of her head, holding her closer.

 

“We decide,” Ygritte said again, moving so that she straddled the torso of the taller girl. She began unbuttoning Sansa’s dress, her fingers dragging slowly- mesmerizingly- over the weathered, stained material. Sansa didn’t matter, because she felt beautiful and scandalous and entranced by the elven face of the girl perched atop her. 

 

Sansa tentatively began to peel away Ygritte’s clothes and the look the other girl gave her was that of a fox- red and proud and fierce. 

 

Ygritte bent to mouth Sansa’s breast through her chemise and Sansa gasped. It was the same, yet different, but the newness was exciting all on it’s own. She reached to palm Ygritte’s high breast and the other girl murmured  _ harder  _ into Sansa’s own nipple. Sansa obliged, giving it a pinch, and Ygritte hummed into Sansa’s other now-sensitized breast. 

 

“I want…” Sansa said slowly,seizing her bravery with both hands, “to touch you.” The last bit was a whisper, but she said it, and Ygritte rewarded her with another deep kiss. 

 

“Then touch me.” She rolled off Sansa and lounged next to her, tugging Sansa til she was on her side as well. “We will touch each other.”

 

Ygritte’s fingers were somehow more demanding than Sandor’s, and Sansa was surprised by the heat and the wetness she encountered at the apex of Ygritte’s thighs. She’d only ever felt her own kitty, and that was only for cleaning or occasionally as a way to taunt Sandor. Ygritte felt like silk, but wet and hot, so hot, and that alone was one of the most erotic things Sansa had ever experienced. 

 

“But, ahh, but Jon,” Sansa managed to gasp out. Ygritte’s fingers may not have been able to sew a seam, but they could fletch an arrow and oh  _ god  _ they were going to make Sansa come. 

 

Ygritte’s eyes went dark and smugly secret. “Jon may not know much, but he knows this. He knows, and he understands. We are women, and we are beautiful.”

 

Sansa renewed her efforts for Ygritte, and soon Ygritte purred  _ there, Sansa, right there  _ and leaned in to kiss Sansa through her whimpers and twitches. 

 

That’s when the bunkhouse door opened. Jon was the first through the door though he paused right there on the threshold, his eyes taking in the girls’ dishabille. Sandor loomed behind Jon, able to see everything over the other man’s shoulders, and Sansa couldn’t read his expression. 

 

Jon’s eyes darkened and he smirked as Ygritte sat up slowly, luxuriously, and began to reassemble her clothing without haste. They were looking at each other across the little room as though Sandor wasn’t standing in the doorway and as if Sansa wasn’t still curled against Ygritte. 

 

Sandor came stepped closer, bumping against Jon, and when Sansa tentatively managed to make eye contact with this man who made her feel so much he slowly looked at Ygritte, then back to Sansa, and then  _ winked.  _ It was certainly deliberate, because he followed that tiny gesture with a loud clearing of his throat and a thump to Jon’s shoulder. “Doesn’t look like we’re needed here, and there are always trees that need felling. Come on, you sappy fuck.” Sandor hauled Jon away, and Ygritte laughed.    
  


“I’m going to save Jon from your great, strapping man,” she said, and laughing ran barefoot out the door. 

 

Sansa straightened her clothes and followed Ygritte to the men and the log pile at a more sedate pace. Ygritte was already laughingly dragging Jon away into the woods when she arrived, so she went to stand by Sandor.

 

“Are you angry?” she asked, surprising herself with her own directness. 

 

“I’m not mad,” Sandor said. “It’s her. Something about that one, I think.” He leaned down and kissed Sansa. Then, in a recognizable imitation of Ygritte’s round vowels and rolling ‘r’s he said, “You’re lucky I’m quite fond of redheads.” He kissed her forehead and then said, more seriously, “It’s okay with Ygritte- god, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop thinking of it- but if I ever see another man touch you, I’ll kill him. I kill him slowly and fuck his corpse.” 

 

Sandor walked off towards the privy, whistling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! There you go. Ygritte got to me. 
> 
> Next chapter: We learn some news, and Ygritte and Sansa have another moment. Don't judge me.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News.  
> Sandor has a temper tantrum.   
> Sansa and Ygritte have some more fun.

By late July the men had the frame of the house up, huge round posts marking the corners of the rooms and bored deep into the ground. Sansa and Ygritte would help prep the lumber in between their other chores by scraping the bark of fresh-hewn logs or using a hatchet to chip thin pieces of wood that would one day be used as shingles. 

 

They’d just finished washing their tools and lunch pan in the stream and had stolen a moment to soak their feet. They both had their dresses drawn up above their knees and were laying back on the cool moss of the riverbank, splashing their feet in the water. 

 

“Are you excited about the babe?” asked Ygritte lazily. Late July may not be as hot at Winterfell as it was in Georgia, but Ygritte claimed that she’d never been so sweaty in her life. 

 

Sansa was used to Ygritte’s apparently random statements and questions. “What baby?” she asked. Maybe Ruth Umber (who had visited with a pie a few days before) was going to have a late-life child. 

 

“You, silly,” said Ygritte. “Wait!” Ygritte popped up and looked down at Sansa. “You haven’t realized?”

 

“Realized what?” asked Sansa obtusely. Now that Ygritte had raised the topic certain things were becoming more and more apparent, things that Sansa wasn’t sure she wanted to face. 

 

“You’re pregnant,” said Ygritte. “You haven’t bled the entire time I’ve known you.”

 

“I’ve always had irregular fluxes,” said Sansa. But, well, she really  _ had  _ never gone this long in between…

 

The knowledge must have shown on her face, because Ygritte leaned down and kissed her gently. “You’re sore here,” she said, bushing a hand over Sansa’s breasts. “And you’ve been falling asleep here and there and everywhere.”

 

Sansa’s eyes teared up and she clung to Ygritte’s hand. She desperately wanted this, wanted a piece of Sandor and herself and the hope the child would bring. She was terrified, too. Terrified to bring a child into the world, to raise and protect it. She was also afraid of the changes it would bring- she’d barely adjusted to marriage. 

 

“You’re so strong” Ygritte whispered, her hair cutting them off from the rest of the world like a curtain. “You’re growing life inside of you. You can do this; we’ll be with you.”

 

Sansa spent the rest of the day avoiding Sandor. She scrubbed the bunkhouse, boiled their linens, and began plucking a pheasant for dinner. She smiled vaguely at him when he came in to wash for dinner, and she missed questions asked of her during their meal. 

 

“Why don’t we walk,” asked Sandor when they rose to wash their plated. “Ygritte and Jon can handle this.”

 

Jon pulled a face but carried Sandor’s plate into the bunkhouse without comment. Sansa and Sandor wandered down to the stream listening to the peepers and the cicadas humming in the trees. 

 

“What’s the matter, Sansa?” asked Sandor. 

 

“You’ve been off all afternoon.”

 

Sansa looked at him and then threw up her hands. “I just, I don’t know how to tell you; I’m worried you’ll be mad at me.”

 

Sandor stopped walking and looked alarmed. “You regret marrying me?”

 

“No!” Sansa wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’ll never regret that. It’s just, um. I’m pregnant.” It was easier to tell him like this with her face hidden in his shirt.

 

Sandor froze against her. “Pregnant? How long have you known?”

 

“I found out this afternoon. Ygritte had to point it out to me,” she said wryly. “I didn’t realize myself.”

 

“But, but the tea. The pennyroyal.” He said it desperately, a dying man praying for salvation. 

 

“I haven’t taken it said Sansa, stepping back and blushing fiercely. “I didn’t remember after the riverboat, and when I did remember, it just felt… wrong. I pushed it off and pushed it off and... here were are.”

 

“Here we are,” echoed Sandor dumbly. 

 

“We’re married, it’s okay,” said Sansa twisting her fingers in her apron. “Are you mad?” She peeked at Sandor through her eyelashes.

 

Sandor turned and left. 

 

Sansa waited by the stream until the moon was hight. She washed her face, trying to hide the fact that she’d cried, but Ygritte and Jon knew the moment she walked in. They were curled together in their bunk, the one beneath Sansa, and Ygritte sat up as soon as she saw Sansa. 

 

“That looby,” she said, and opened her arms to the other woman. 

 

Sansa hadn’t thought she had any tears left in her, but she somehow she managed to produce a few more into the sweet-scented skin of Ygritte’s neck. 

 

“What happened love?” the other woman asked as Jon awkwardly extricated himself from the bed. 

 

“I told him, I told him I was p-pr-pregnant, and he walked away,” hiccuped Sansa. “He didn’t say anything!”

 

“He’ll come round,” said Ygritte. “I expect it was a shock.” 

 

“I could kill him,” offered Jon. He saw Ygritte roll her eyes and so he added, “Well, if I had a gun and took him by surprise I could kill him.”

 

Sansa just shook her head  _ no.  _ She finally fell asleep wrapped around Ygritte, the women’s hair pooling together in a fiery swirl of red against the white of the sheets. 

 

Jon sighed, accepted that he wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night, and went out in search of Sandor. 

 

Sandor turned out to be surprisingly easy to find. He was sitting in Reaper’s stall and talking to the horse. Jon stopped by the huge sliding door to the barn and listened. “You’re going to be a father too, my lad. I’ve seen the way Ygritte’s Grey Wind has been looking recently.”

 

There was a pause and a rustling of hay and then Sandor’s voice continues. “I just don’t know how to care for a babe, and that’s only if Sansa survives bringing it into the world. My grandmother said that my brother and I were the biggest babies she’d ever seen. What if this kills her?”

 

Another pause. 

 

“...what if the babe is like Gregor? It’s in me, boy. I carry that with me.”

 

Jon pretended to sneeze. Sansa’s Hestia poked her head over the stall door, eyed Jon, and went back to her hay. 

 

“Sandor?” Jon called. He was beginning to suspect that Sandor was going to continue to hide when the other man slowly stood. 

 

“Did she send you after me?”

 

“No,” said Jon. 

 

“Is she asleep?” Sandor asked. 

 

“Yes.” Jon thrust his hands into his pockets. 

 

“Good,” said Sandor.

 

“Her mother had five children. She conceived seven times, but lost one in between Robb and Sansa and the other between Bran and Rickon. She carried them all to term without issue, but Ned worried every time. 

 

“How do you know that?” asked Sandor. 

 

“Ned told me. I remember when Bran was born,” said Jon. “Lysa was with Cat, and father stayed downstairs with the rest of us. He made dinner that night, and it was my turn to wash the dishes. He dried them, and I asked if he was worried. He said he worried each and every time, but that she’d always been okay.”

 

Sandor hadn’t come out of the stall; he was leaning distractedly against Reaper’s shoulder. 

 

“I fucked up,” he said finally.

 

“Yeah you did. She’s thinking that you don’t want either one of them now, her or the babe.”

 

Eventually Jon went back to the bunkhouse (and slept in Sandor’s bed) when it became clear the older man was done talking. 

 

Sandor spent the rest of the night wondering how to fix things. As the sun rose and the sky faded from lavender to pink Sandor concocted a plan. 

 

The plan started with an apology. He waited until Sansa was crossing the yard from the privy back to the bunkhouse when he approached her. Sandor saw that her eyes were red and puffy, and she seemed pale. 

 

“I’m sorry Sansa.” (Another apology, and all of them had been made to this woman). “I fucked up. There’s nothing you can do to chase me away, you’re stuck with me now, God help you.”

 

“You want the baby, then?” she asked, looking up at him with a timidity that struck at the heart of Sandor. 

 

“I want a little girl with her mother’s hair or a little boy with your determination,” he said, and as he said it Sandor discovered that at least that much was true.

 

She stepped forward and leaned her weight against him, clearly exhausted and in need of comfort. Sandor hugged her close and felt his heart lift and expand. He’d never be worthy of this woman, he would never deserve her, but he could damn well try. He bent to kiss her, letting his lips land on the top of her head. 

 

Sansa let Sandor’s kisses drift along her cheek, her eyebrows, the tip of her nose. This gentleness, this  _ worship  _ was unlike him, and Sansa soaked it in. She knew they would make it through this.. The biggest hurdle was crossed- now they just needed to finish the house before the baby came. 

~~~

 

“Did you know,” Ygritte said as they sat in the sun together, “that babes born in the winter sicken for the sun?”

 

“How do you know?” Sansa asked. She was on her back against the horse blanket Ygritte had dragged out into the pasture. Sansa’s eyes were closed, and the sun was beating down through her eyelids, making everything a deep red; the red of her hair and Ygritte’s. 

 

“We do,” the other woman said. “We know when they weaken and won’t take the breast that the winter’s babe needs the sun on her skin. We lay with them in the light, even in the cold, and after a few days they are fat and happy again.”

 

“I wonder why,” Sansa murmured, drowsing in the breezer and the bone-deep buzz of cicadas.

 

“Jon may know some things,” Ygritte said after a time. “Sure we did need this.”

 

Jon had insisted that the four take off an entire afternoon. They knew the house had to be finished by winter, they knew that there was always work to be done, but they were only staggering to bed when the sun was down and staggering back out when it rose again. In these high summer months the darkness only lasted from nine at night to about five in the morning. With all the work they were doing, a body just couldn’t go on forever. They were all also increasingly protective of Sansa, insisting she rest after lunch and drink plenty of water. 

 

“That’s one of the reasons redheads are lucky,” said Ygritte. She’d moved closer to Sansa again, and was holding a strand of Sansa’s hair next to her own as through the was comparing the colors. “We’re kissed by fire, kissed by the sun. The sun makes grass grow which makes the animals grow. It helps us grow warm and strong.”

 

Sansa leaned over and kissed the other girl on a languid impulse. Ygritte’s lips were warm and berry-flavored from the lunch so Sansa tasted them again. It was different from when she was with Sandor, and she expected that now, it was different but good. With Ygritte it wasn’t a raging need but a gentler thing, soft like she and Ygritte were soft as hot as only she and Ygritte could be. 

 

Sandor was up on the great beams the four had wrestled in place over the course of the week, the beams that would one day support the roof. He hadn’t been working- he’d promised after all- but he didn’t see any harm in climbing up and taking measurements, it would help them on the next day. 

 

Because he was up so high he was able to catch a glimpse of Sansa and Ygritte frolicking down in the hay field. The tall grass had mostly obscured them; it was a bright flash of fox-red that had caught his attention. 

 

The girls were naked on a horse blanket, and Ygritte’s head was between Sansa’s thighs. Both of them seemed to glow in the bright sun, their skin smooth and white. Sandor was too far away to see Sansa’s thighs tense or her back arch; he was too far to hear her whimpers and cries, but he knew them, yes he did. He was hard imagining them together, how slick she would be, and Sandor glanced around to see if Jon was still at the stream having his bath. 

 

He was, so Sandor took his handkerchief out of his pocket and unlaced his trousers without taking his eyes off the women chasing pleasure down in the green-gold hay. Sansa was spread eagle now and Ygritte was still between her legs, but Ygritte’s chin was resting on Sansa’s belly. 

 

Sandor watched as the women switched spots in a tangle of long white limbs. He saw Sansa settle down with her face by Ygritte’s cunt and Sandor marveled at her. This was the woman who couldn’t even acknowledge that part of herself not too long ago; now she was nose-deep in the cunny of a friend, of her  _ sister in law.  _ That made it somehow better, that she was comfortable enough to lay naked in the sun with a family member. 

 

When Sansa moved to lay on her own arm, clearly with the purpose of touching herself (likely at Ygritte’s urging) Sandor came into the fisted handkerchief. He cleaned up, balled up the handkerchief, and buttoned himself away. In his satisfied glow Sandor was content to watch the two women as they curled together in the sun and - yes- fell asleep. 

 

The house went up quickly after that. Shingling the roof took the longest. Each shingle was chipped by hand (most of them done by the women) and then they had to be applied to the roof with nails and a thick, sticky pine resin that had to be heated over the fire. It was backbreaking work, and it seemed they’d never get the goddamn roof done.

 

On rainy days Jon and Sandor made furniture in the barn. It wasn’t pretty- both women deserved some beauty in their lives, but neither Sandor or Jon was a carpenter- but the tables and chairs were sturdy and sanded smooth as satin. 

 

In the evenings Jon and Ygritte and Sansa would retreat back into the bunkhouse. Sandor would “take a walk,” and he sort of would: he’d walk back to the barn. There he would dust a pile of hay of the second part of his apology to Sansa. He was making her a bed, he was making  _ their  _ bed. It was solid oak from a tree that had grown in the Winterfell wood, and so far he’d measured and sanded and cut the thing so that no nails were used. It would be long enough to fit him, and wide enough for all the children Sansa could possibly want. 

 

In early September they moved the tables and chairs into the kitchen of the new house. They completed the “move” by taking apart the bunkhouse’s little woodstove and installing it in the kitchen of the new ranch house. Each couple dragged their straw pallets into the bedrooms designated for them, and life shifted again.

 

Winterfell’s footprint was even larger now. Jon and Sandor had an unspoken understanding that it would need to house two full families, and they’d already cut doorways in for future extensions. 

 

Sandor came into a kitchen that smelled of women and apples and lightly of woodsmoke. It was a homey smell, an  _ indoor  _ kind of smell, and Sandor was fucking thankful for that. Only the western edge of the roof remained unshingled, and he and Jon could have that completed within the week. It couldn’t have come at a better time; the early mornings had a blue tint around the edges and were noticeably cooler than the days before. Autumn came early this far north. 

 

Ygritte and Sansa were peeling apples into the huge pot Jon had brought home. Sandor didn’t listen to their words as he washed his hands and contemplated his work, but he did let their happy chatter wash over him. He wasn’t sure how they still had anything left to talk about; they’d been living together for months, but he didn’t begrudge them their friendship. 

 

Sandor finished washing up and was turning back towards the table when Sansa laughed. It was a deep belly laugh that bubbled out of her pure and clear; her head tipped back and Sandor could see little crinkles at the corner of her eyes. His gaze moved from Sansa, as bright as a new penny in her joy, to the woman seated across from her. 

 

Ygritte met Sandor’s eyes and she gave him a little smile too. This wasn’t one of her naughty smiles (Ygritte had many of those) and it wasn’t a smug smirk (she had a repertoire of those, too). This smile was of happiness and understanding. She loved Sansa as well, and she wanted to give Sansa joy. 

 

Sandor thought about that over the next days as he pounded and tarred cedar shingles onto the roof with Jon. Manual labor gave him plenty of time to think, and the routine of their days here at Winterfell soothed something inside him that had always been wound tight. He thought of Sansa out rolling in the hay with Ygritte, and the way she would laugh and touch the other girl while they cooked or did the washing. Those little touches were almost never sexual, but they spoke of a bone-deep comfort that Sandor had worried Ramsay had taken from her forever. 

 

Sandor found his excuse to talk to Ygritte a few days later. He’d been washing pine sap off his hatchet and ax in the water by the streamhouse when a glint caught his eye. He thought Sansa or Ygritte might have dropped something, so he used his fingers to rake through the sand under the water to find what it was. It turned out to be a lump of rock with some kind of gleam to it. He stuffed it in his pocket, completed his task, and returned inside for supper. 

 

He showed the rock to Jon the next day while they were taking a breather up on the roof. “Garnet maybe,” said Jon, turning it in his fingers. “There’s all kinds of rocks and gems in these hills. Not enough to mine, but a few washed up that we could sell.”

 

“I might give it to Ygritte,” said Sandor, taking it back. He’d meant the statement causally, but Jon gave him a look. 

 

“She’d like that,” he said a beat too late. Jon’s lips quirked up into a little smirk. “She likes pretty things.”

 

Jon wasn’t bothered by Ygritte’s fascination with Sansa. It was just the way Ygritte was, and besides, she’d always come back to him.  He’d love her when she was bent and wrinkled, and she’d told him that she’d love him when he was bald and fat. Thinking of that conversation (and where it had led) Jon smiled vaguely into the distance and ran his fingers over his hair. 

 

Sandor spent the next two nights lingering in the kitchen with the little rock and a flint knife. He’d managed to chip away some of the tan-looking sandstone around the gem, and he’d been carefully working at exposing the shine of the gem itself. He’d used some of the gummed sandpaper on it and had shown it to Jon again, who’d been more interested this time. 

 

“It’s a fire opal,” he’d said, letting it catch the light. “Prettier than a garnet, at least that’s what I think.” 

 

Sandor thought it was rather pretty, and it truly did remind him of Ygritte. It was mostly orange, but it caught the light and reflected green and purple and yellow. He bided his time until Ygritte was away from Sansa (which was harder than he’d expected) but eventually he found her out practicing with her bow. 

 

“You can stop staring,” she’d said, not turning away from the tree serving as her target. 

 

He’d come towards her, suddenly feeling awkward and angry about it. 

 

“I found this,” he said, taking the opal out of his pocket and thrusting it at her. “Reminded me of you.”

 

She took the rock from his palm and studied it, holding it in both hands and turning it so it caught the gold September light. 

 

“It’s beautiful,” she said. She lifted her face to look at him. “What is it called?”

 

“A fire opal,” Sandor said with his hands shoved in his pockets. “I know you like pretty things, and I just wanted to say, um-  fuck.”

 

Now Ygritte  _ was _ smirking at him, so he looked at the treeline and continued. 

 

“I wanted to say that I know you love Sansa too, and I’m fine with it. Well, not just fine with it, but- shit.” Sandor scowled and decided to give up his attempts at polite speech and just say what he was thinking. “I wanted to say that you make Sansa happy which makes me happy so I don’t care that you fuck my wife.”

 

Ygritte laughed at that, the little rock still held in her palm, and Sandor could see, just for a second, the way Sansa and Jon saw her. 

 

Ygritte came towards him and crooked her finger, so he bent down so she could kiss his cheek. She chose to kiss the scarred side, and Sandor knew she’d done it deliberately. 

 

“You’re a great ninny,” she said, “but I know why Sansa loves you. Thank you for my treasures.” She slipped the stone into her apron pocket and calmly returned to her target practice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rather like this chapter (although forgive me for not editing it as much as I should have). Hopefully you enjoyed it too! 
> 
> Next chapter Sansa and Sandor have a dirty, dirty time.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventures with a butt plug.

“It’s safe, isn’t it, for an expecting mother to, umm…” Sansa turned red. 

 

“To fuck her husband? Of course it is,” said Ygritte, folding one of Jon’s shirts that she’d just plucked off the line. “Some women have more of a need for such things when they’re carrying.”

 

“Sandor hasn’t touched me since I told him,” said Sanda, and those few words managed to convey the depth of her misery. “I’m not even showing yet.”

 

Ygritte roller her eyes. “Have you asked him to take you?” she asked. 

 

“No, I’ve never had to… how would I do that?” she asked.

 

“You ask, you looby. You say, ‘Oh Sandor, won’t you spear me on your great big cock!’” Ygritte fluttered her eyelashes extravagantly. 

 

“I can’t say that,” Sansa hissed. 

 

“Why not?”

 

“I just can’t. And I don’t want that. Well, I do, but…”

 

Sansa tugged Ygritte close and whispered into the other woman’s ear. Ygritte’s eyes grew rounder and rounder. When Sansa finished her hurried speech Ygritte grabbed a fistful of Sansa’s hair and hauled the taller woman to her. 

 

“I can fix this,” she said. “Come with me.”

 

Ygritte towed Sansa by the hand into the house and up into the bedroom she shared with Jon. They had a little wooden box resting against one wall, and Ygritte pulled off the lid and rummaged inside. 

 

“This,” she said, holding the little object up triumphantly. “We can boil it in the laundry so you feel tidy, and then I’ll help you put it in.”

 

Ygritte began to march back downstairs as though everything was settled. 

 

“Ygritte!” said Sansa, grabbing the other girl’s arm. “What is that? What do you mean  _ put it in?” _

 

“It’s a plug. If I tell you more you won’t want to try it.”

 

Sansa eyes the thing in Ygritte’s hand. “I’m not sure I want to try it anyway.”

 

Ygritte kissed Sansa quickly on the lips. “Have we tried something you haven’t liked?”

 

“No,” said Sansa reluctantly. 

 

“Then trust me in this. If you  _ really  _ don’t like it we’ll stop. Besides, I know Sandor is going to go wild.” Ygritte cuddled Sansa into her. “How about you go to your room and undress and lie down and relax. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

 

Sansa allowed herself to be coddled and persuaded into doing just that. She undressed and laid down on her half of the pallet, luxuriating in how her bed furs felt against her bare skin. Sun was coming through their windows and Sansa tried to take deep, even breaths. 

 

She was tired; they were all tired. They worked all day so that come winter they would be comfortable. Winter was coming, it always was, and this winter she’d have another family to share it with. 

 

Sansa heard Ygritte’s light footsteps into the room, but she didn’t bother to open her eyes. She’d finally gotten comfortable. 

 

“Look how pretty you are love,” said Ygritte, and the straw tick rustled as Ygritte joined Sansa.

 

Ygritte took one of Sansa’s nipples into her mouth and tugged ever so gently. Sansa  _ hmmed  _ her approval and shimmied under Ygritte’s touch. “Still sensitive?” asked Ygritte, and Sansa nodded. 

 

Ygritte licked the other breast before letting her fingers slide down Sansa’s stomach. No one could tell she was pregnant yet, although Sansa claimed to  _ feel  _ different. Ygritte nibbled on Sansa’s lips and toyed with Sansa’s little clit and opening. When Ygritte felt the other woman get wetter and wetter she knew it was time to make her move. 

 

“This is a bum toy, pet,” she said, running the narrow end of the plug through Sansa’s glistening curls. “It goes in that little hole you’d like Sandor to play with.” 

 

“Won’t it hurt?” asked Sansa, riding a wave of lust and apprehension. 

 

“Not if we do it right. If we do this right it makes your pleasure even stronger.”

 

Sansa nodded to Ygritte. Nothing either of Sansa’s lovers had ever done had hurt her; so far they always brought her pleasure. She would try this, and if she didn’t like it, she  _ knew  _ Ygritte would stop. 

 

Ygritte lay back on the tick and patted her chest. “Saddle up, sweet,” she said. Sansa had done this with Sandor on the riverboat, but she still couldn’t help the blush that spread over her. 

 

Eventually Sansa was arranged to Ygritte’s liking. The toy rested in a little saucer of something on the floor by the pillow, and Ygritte began to lick over Sansa’s little nub. Sansa let her hips begin to rock; truly this was the most wonderful thing a woman could feel. 

 

Ygritte gave every sign of enjoyment herself, humming into Sansa’s wet cunt, and then something slick nudged against her behind. She clenched, not trying to, just from instinct, and Ygitte smacked her on the ass, not stopping her attentions to Sansa’s clit. 

 

Sansa made an effort to relax. She focused on Ygritte’s patient tongue and the warm heat that was spiraling in her belly. Sansa remembered Sandor’s finger in her bum that time on the riverboat, and it must have made her even more wet, for Ygritte growled her approval. 

 

The slick, cool thing prodded at Sansa’s bum again, and this time it slid in just a bit. It didn’t hurt, it was just an extra layer of sensation, and Sansa’s hips began to thrust against Ygritte’s mouth.    
  


The toy went away, was rolled in the bowl by Ygritte’s head and was back again. It went in a little further and Sansa felt it twist before it was removed. Ygritte did this several times, each time forcing Sansa a little wider. Sansa was shivering and whining for Ygritte by the time the toy was forced (with only a feeling of deep pressure) inside of her. 

 

“Ygritte,” Sansa moaned, feeling incredibly full. “Please…”

 

Ygritte pushed the other girl off herself. “Save it for your husband, sweet. I think it’s your turn to help me out now, hmm?”

 

Sansa pushed up Ygritte’s skirts and nosed into the other girl’s curls. Her cunny smelled similar to Sansa’s own but different, spicier somehow, something that was unique to Ygritte. Ygritte’s little nub was already so hard when Sansa found it with her tongue, and Sansa set up a rhythm of fast flicks and laves. Ygritte’s fingers fisted in Sansa’s hair and pulled the other girl in tighter. 

 

Ygritte came with a groan and her thighs tight around Sansa’s ears. 

 

Sansa lay with her for a few minutes in the aftermath, hyper-aware of the heavy plug inside her and her own aching clit. 

 

“Go find your man,” Ygritte said. “I may go pounce on Jon, though you’ve done an excellent job of wearing me out.”

 

Sansa kissed Ygritte quickly (they tasted of each other and that was intimate in itself) and she hastily dressed (leaving her laces loose) before rushing into the kitchen. She splashed her face with cold water, gargled a bit, and then went outside. 

 

Sandor and Jon were in the barn. Sansa felt like she was walking strangely, not used to the weight inside her, and she tried to be relaxed when she called, “Sandor, I need to ask you something.”

 

Sandor put down his awl and came out to Sansa. 

 

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked, following Sansa out towards the stream. 

 

“Not really,” she replied. 

 

“What can I do?” he asked, all solicitous concern. 

 

Sansa couldn’t tell him to his face, so she tugged him down, crawled into his lap (sitting with the plug in was ...strange) and whispered into his ear. “I have a ...toy, inside me. Ygritte put it in. Remember on the boat, when you used your finger? Um. If you take the toy out, you can-”

 

Sandor’s fingers were already fumbling with her skirts, and he lifted her up so he could smooth his calloused hand over her cheeks and probe into the cleft there. He felt the lip of the plug stretching her little hole and groaned.  

 

“Sansa, oh god Sansa, I didn’t want to risk you, you or the babe, but fuck-”

 

His finger was still circling and circling. Her bum was slick, Ygritte must have used something to ease the toy’s passage into Sansa. 

 

“Please, Sandor,” Sansa said. “I’m not going to be able to get through the next months without you and I want to try this before I’m too big to enjoy it. 

 

That did it. The thought of Sansa round and full with his child merged with Sansa right now, who was full of toy. He started yanking at her clothes and she yanked at his and eventually they were both nude and stretched out by the stream, out of sight from the barn. 

 

Sandor put two fingers into Sansa and found her sopping wet, her little pussy clenching at his fingers as though desperate for something to hold. 

 

“Oh Christ, princess, you want this don’t you?” he said. 

 

She moaned an agreement, and Sandor couldn’t help it when he thrust into her, it was get in her or die on the spot. She was so wet, and hotter than Sandor thought she’d ever been before. As Sandor moved against her he realized that he could feel it, he could feel the weight of the plug  _ inside Sansa  _ and he had to yank himself back out of her before he came right there on the spot. 

 

He rolled her over and inserted a hand between her belly and the ground, his fingers going  _ ever so slowly  _ over Sansa’s little clit. 

 

“Sandor!” she half yelled. 

 

“Yes, princess?” he growled in her ear. 

 

“Need you,” she muttered, embarrassed.

 

Sandor began to play with the toy inside her. “Sansa Stark had a plug in her ass,” he said, spinning the toy so she would feel the motion. “The little lady of Winterfell has a toy in her ass and is begging for the cock of this old man.”

 

“Yes,” Sansa whimpered, overwhelmed by Sandor’s fingers at her clit and the toy lodged heavily in her arse. 

 

“She wants me to take out this sad little toy and put my cock in here. I’ve filled her cunt with a baby, now she wants me to fill her arse,” he said tugging the plug so that the widest part of the toy stretched her hole before letting her body suck it back inside. 

 

Sansa was breathing in little hitching sobs now. This was so  _ good,  _ it was so much, she never thought in her wildest dreams that something could feel like this. 

 

“I’m going to take this out, princess, and I’m going to watch your little hole flutter,” Sandor breathed, and then he did just that. The plug came out gently, and Sandor could see the greased, glistening pink of Sansa’s bumhole. 

 

He had to take a deep breath and close his eyes before continuing. He eased the tip of his cock into that first ring of muscle, and not for the first time he wished his manhood was made along a more traditional scale. 

 

“That’s me,” he said into Sansa’s hair. She smelled of arousal and flower and pussy, and Sandor realized that she’d eaten out Ygritte before coming to him. Sandor managed to get even harder. “That’s me inside you, inside your ass. I’m the last man who will ever be here and the only fucking man you’ll think about having inside you.”

 

Sansa whimpered  _ yes  _ again. 

 

Sandor worked another few inches into her tight, vise-like heat. “Do you feel me filling you? I’ll be so deep inside you that you’ll never feel alone again.”

 

He worked himself in until he didn’t think he could do any further. Sansa was twitching rhythmically against Sandor, her soft arse rubbing against his aching balls, and Sandor slowly began to move inside her. It was a luxurious pace, one that allowed Sansa to feel each inch of Sandor move deeply inside her. 

 

_ So full  _ she whimpered.  _ So full. _

 

Sandor knew he would be coming quickly, so he finally truly touched her clit. It was hard and, he guessed, painfully swollen. It only took two gentle circles before Sansa  _ screamed,  _ a piercing cry of ecstasy that had Sandor emptying himself inside her. He could feel her inside squeezing down on him in a hard, fisting grip and for a moment all Sandor could see was white. His balls felt as though they’d been wrung out dry, and they were both so sensitive that it took him a long moment to work his way back out of Sansa. 

 

He dunked his handkerchief in the stream and cleaned between Sansa’s legs before rinsing it and gently cleaning her arse. He could tell that she would be sore, but she had such a lazy smile on her face that he was finding it hard to care more than a little. He jumped into the water when he was sure Sansa was tidy, and he let the cool water wash away most of his post-coital haze. 

 

He got out and used his shirt to dry off before curling himself around Sansa. “You’re sure it can’t hurt the babe?” he asked finally. 

 

“I asked Ygritte, and she said no woman she knew had had problems with it. She even said that some women needed to, uh, couple more often than normal.”

 

Sandor could feel Sansa’s blush now. She’d just come with his cock in her ass, and yet she blushed over using the word  _ coupled.  _ He loved her, loved her for her bravery and her passion and her stubborn, lady-like manners. 

 

“Jon is probably looking for you,” she said after a few moments of drowsing in the sun.

 

“Not likely,” said Sandor. “Not after that scream.” He couldn’t help but smirk a little.

 

Sansa blushed and began to dress. Before they parted Sansa kissed him chastely, and Sandor returned to work whistling.   

 

A few days later Sandor revealed the second half of his apology to Sansa. Jon and Sandor had carried the pieces of the bed up into Sansa and Sandor’s bedroom. They’d assembled it while Sansa boiled laundry and Ygritte “hunted”- in reality the other girl was finishing the last seam on the giant straw mattress the three of them had made just for this bed. 

 

Ygritte smiled more often than she normally did during dinner, and when Sansa wished Jon good night he wasn’t able to meet her eyes. 

 

Sandor followed Sansa up the stairs and down the hall to their side of the house. He held the kerosene lamp a little higher so that the light would go over Sansa’s shoulder and illuminate the room ahead. She froze in the doorway, and Sandor inched past her to place the lamp on a low bedside table. 

 

“Sandor,” Sansa breathed, and he could see tears in her eyes. 

 

“I started this the night you told me you were pregnant,” he said, standing awkwardly by the large, gleaming bed. “I apologized, but it didn’t seem like enough.” 

 

He moved and picked Sansa up with one arm around her shoulders and the other behind her knees. He deposited her in the center of the bed and held her to him. “This is our bed. This is the bed where our babe will be born and where we’ll make his brothers and sisters.” Sandor buried his nose in her hair. “I love you, Sansa,” he mumbled. 

 

Sansa tugged him down to lie beside her. “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. That's one of the nastiest things I've ever written. 
> 
> Next chapter: Second family reunion!


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya!!

September drifted away. The roof was completed: all four of them sat on the roof as the last shingle was pounded home. Sansa sniffled, Sandor held her, and Ygritte laughed at the both of them. 

 

Harvest season was upon them. Sansa and Ygritte walked the apple orchard gathering basket after basket of fruit. The Karstarks had a cider press, and everyone around would come together over the coming weeks to press their apples and set cider aside to ferment. Huge pots of applesauce and spiced apples would be made as well, and all the neighboring women would take these home to use through the winter. 

 

Sandor and Jon were going to join the men in moving the herds down from the summer pastures and into the winter range. The cattle sorting would be done at Winterfell; the herds shared the mountain fields in the summer and they were separated for wintering and then breeding in the spring. Sansa and Ygritte would provide coffee and hot food to the men over the cattle sorting- it typically lasted from dawn well into the night. 

 

The women were returning from the orchard with another basket of apples when they saw a lone rider picking their way down the steep slope towards the house. 

 

“Who is that?” Ygritte asked, squinting into the autumn sun. 

 

The rider was in a faded blue Union coat and flat-topped cap. His horse was gorgeous, a muscled dappled grey with white feathering around its hooves. 

 

The figure waved at them, and slid off the horse when it reached the bottom of the hill. Sansa and Ygritte walked closer.

 

“Arya?” Sansa whispered to herself. The figure at the bottom of the hill looked up and Sansa yelled, “Arya!” dropped her apples, and hurtled down the hill. They hugged each other tightly and rocked from side to side as Ygritte walked down the hill to join them. 

 

“Ygritte, this is my sister, this is Arya,” said Sansa, grinning widely. “We thought she died in Atlanta, but here she is.”

 

Ygritte smiled and nodded at the other girl, who nodded back. 

 

Sansa continued, “Arya, this is Ygritte, she’s Jon’s wife.”

 

Arya looked up at the newly completed house. “It’s different,” she said. “I knew it burned down, but I always imagined that we’d make it the same somehow.”

 

“Do you mind?” Sansa asked, turning to look up at the house as well. 

 

“Not as long as there’s room,” Arya said. 

 

They walked passed the front of the house on the way to the barn. Arya looked at the house all the way, still slightly put-off by the  _ newness  _ of the structure. It still smelled of sawdust, and hadn’t weathered to the soft grey that came with time. The porch was wide and long, though no willow rockers rested there. It was wide, larger even than the original house, and Arya wondered what it looked like inside. 

 

Sandor and Jon were leading their horses into the other end of the barn. Jon stiffened and then dropped the reins to his horse and sprinted to Arya. He picked her up and spun her around, and Sansa saw that Arya was crying. Jon had been her best friend as a child- how could she have forgotten that?”

 

“Where have you  _ been?”  _ Jon asked, holding Arya at arm’s length. “Well, I can see where you’ve been, but why did you stay away? Why didn’t you write?” He hugged her again before taking his horse from Sandor. 

 

“I joined the army,” Arya laughed, and then the barn was a flurry of untacking and horse grooming and laughter up and down the aisle. 

 

“We thought the mob had taken you in Atlanta, the mob at father’s execution.” Sansa called as she brushed Reaper. 

 

“No, Yoren found me. I was next to the fountain and he grabbed me and dragged me north.  He told me that he was going to try to get me back to Winterfell.” 

 

Arya put her saddle over the back of a stall door and started rubbing away the sweat marks on her horse’s back. 

 

“We were ambushed by a militia group in Virginia. I escaped, only to end up in Tywin Lannister’s clutches. Gendry- I met him in Richmond- he knew I was a girl, too- he worked as a blacksmith and gunsmith. I was Tywin’s errand boy.”

 

That stopped all movement in the barn.    
  


“Um… really?” said Jon.

 

“Yep. I kept hoping to get some information that I could use, but I wasn’t there long enough. I escaped, and took Gendry and another boy with me.”

 

“How?” asked Ygritte, eyeing Arya.  

 

Arya waved that question away with a hook pick. “Not important right now. We got away and decided that the safest place to go would be somewhere North. I had this half-baked plan for revenge, so I went with them. We joined a unit in Maryland.”

 

By now the group was walking out of the barn. 

 

“Would you like a bath while I make dinner?” Sansa asked. It was early for supper, but she wanted something to do, and she knew all of them were dying for more information.

 

“That would be good,” said Arya. 

 

“I’ll kill some chickens,” Sandor said, and peeled away from the group. 

 

Jon helped Ygritte drag the tin slipper tub into the kitchen while Sansa boiled water over the fire and on the stove. Sansa got a sliver of soap and one of their flannel towels from the cabinet and draped them on a kitchen chair by the tub. Jon was shooed out of the kitchen and Ygritte and Sansa sat with their baths to the tub. 

 

“This is  _ divine,”  _ Arya said. “It’s fuck- it’s hard to get really clean when you can’t safely take off your clothes.”

 

“Sandor curses all the time, Arya. My head won’t turn red and pop off,” Sansa said, peeling apples into a bowl she held in her lap. She planned to make tarts for a special welcome-home dessert.

 

“Remember when mom heard us practicing cussing?” Arya asked Sansa. There was a splash, and Sansa wondered what her sister was up to in the water.

 

“I do,” said Sansa, smiling. Time and loss had taken the sting out of the memory; it was solely funny now. For Ygritte’s sake Sansa told the story. “You know that Jon was raised with us as a sibling, right? I was six before I was even told that he was technically my cousin. Anyway, Theon was kind of the same, except he came to live here when he was seven. His parents were killed in an accident. That doesn’t really matter. He used to teach me and Arya bad words, or he’d trick us into saying them somehow. He said it was grown-up to cuss.’

 

“Mom found us playing in the pasture one day. Arya was a bandit and I was being held up for my jewels. We were yelling curses at each other, and she stood there with her face turning redder and redder. She washed our mouths out with lye soap.”

“Bubbles came out my nose,” Arya commented from behind the redheads. “I’m all clean now, but I washed my clothes. Do you have something I could borrow?”

 

Sansa and Ygritte still only had one dress apiece. The four of them had decided new clothes could wait until winter, and that getting the house comfortable and finished was a priority. 

 

Sansa had an idea, and went upstairs to get the washed-thin shirt Sandor had been wearing when he arrived at Winterfell amidst snow and ashes. 

 

Soon the kitchen was filled with a homey silence and the smells of cooking. Ygritte and Arya finished peeling apples while Sansa began heating oil and butter beans on the stove. Sandor knocked dramatically on the back door before being told it was safe to come in. He brought two cleaned and plucked chickens, and he and Jon carried the tub outside to dump it. 

 

Sansa chopped and breaded the chicken before dropping it into the hot oil. 

 

Arya sniffed the air. “Is that Old Nan’s chicken?” she asked hopefully.

 

“Yes, I remembered it was a favorite of yours,” said Sansa. 

 

They talked of normal things as the chicken fried and the tarts baked. They talked about what Arya ate in the army (anything or nothing), they talked of where she’d been (everywhere) and they generally skirted around issues that would hurt. 

 

Eventually the food was done, the men were summoned, and they settled into the kitchen together. 

 

“We know you joined the army, but how did you do it?” asked Jon. “Didn’t the recruitment officer look at you?”

 

Arya was damp from her bath and wearing one of Sandor’s shirts as a dress, which was belted tightly around her waist. It made her look like a child playing dress up, which was only helped by her short, damp hair drying around her face.

 

“No,” said Arya, taking a bite of chicken. “He didn’t. He asked me my name and my age and told me to step aside. I know what you’re asking, though.” 

 

She swallowed her food, took a sip of cider, and continued her story. “I was scared shit- scared to death the first few days. I’d wake very early in the morning to visit the bushes and sleep as far from the other men as I could. That’s how I met Syrio.”

 

Arya dunked her biscuit in the butter pot, and Sansa wondered if it would be appropriate to remind her sister what knives were for.  _ Too soon  _ she decided. 

 

“I woke up one morning when it was still dark and he was sitting on the edge of my bedroll. ‘There is one rule for war,” he said. “We are to look death in the face and say ‘not today’.””

 

Arya stuffed the entire biscuit into her mouth and washed down the great lump of floury, buttery dough with a swig of cider. She got the cider off her lips by wiping her mouth with her (well, Sandor’s) sleeve. Sansa had to look away.

 

“What the fuck was he talking about?” asked Sandor. 

 

“When we would finish the drilling for the day he’d take me down by the stream and make me chase birds and stand in the water so still that fish would go over my feet. Then we would fight with sticks. When I mastered the stick he would teach me to shoot- while I ran, while I sat in a tree, while I rode a horse or laid in the grass. Some of his lessons kept me alive.” 

 

“We marched out of Maryland  and into Virginia in July. We were in Bull Run,” said Arya, and everyone but Sandor looked away. 

 

He’d been there too; he’d seen the smoke and bodies and fear- he’d just been on the opposing side. 

 

“Gendry and I were the youngest in the regiment. When it became clear we’d lose the battle Arthur Dayne sent Gendry and me back to Washington with a message. He thought that by sending two of us he’d double the chances of the letter reaching command.”

 

Arya remembered that night all too well. She didn’t need to share it with the rest of her family. 

 

“We reached Washington by some miracle. We unofficially carried messages across Virginia and Maryland for months before we were called dispatch riders. Gendry and I were assigned to the same unit, and the rest was- it was the war.”

 

Arya knew she should tell Sansa and Sandor of seeing them in Chattanooga and pulling strings in Atlanta, but it didn’t seem like time yet. She let the conversation steer back to less… fraught matters. 

 

“When will the men be here for the cattle culling?” Sansa asked. 

 

“Before dawn. The hands are driving the herds down now; we should be able to start before sunup,” said Jon. 

 

Arya perked up. “I didn’t miss the winter cattle drive?”

 

“It’s tomorrow,” said Sandor.

 

“I’ll help,” said Arya. “I can cut cattle.”

 

Jon and Sansa protested. Sandor and Ygritte didn’t say anything. 

 

“Can you do it?” Sandor asked, his voice pitched low under the hubbub of Arya’s siblings. 

 

“Nymeria and I rode dispatch through battlefields. We can handle some fucking cows,” Arya muttered, shooting angry glances at her sister. 

 

“Fine,” Sandor said, and he returned to his dinner. 

 

“Sandor!” said Sansa, but he chose that moment to feign deafness. 

 

Dinner ended on an awkward note. “That was really good,” Arya commented to Sansa. “How did you get the crust of the tarts so fluffy?”

 

“You have to use really cold butter,” Sansa said, proud. 

 

“I didn’t do that,” said Arya thoughtfully, licking her fingers. 

 

“You’ve been baking pies? In the middle of the war?” asked Sansa.

 

“One or two.”

 

Arya silently dried the dishes as Sansa washed. Sandor brought in wood for everyone’s bedroom (nights were cool, now) and the sisters had a moment for themselves.

 

“When is the baby due?” Arya asked quietly. 

 

Sansa froze for just a minute before continuing to scrub the chicken pan. “We think late February. How did you know?”

 

Arya shrugged. “I just noticed I guess.” 

 

Sansa felt a little self conscious. She’d just started to show, or at least that’s what she thought. 

 

They washed and dried in companionable but strained silence until the chores were done. I’m really, truly glad you’re home,” said Sansa. “And I want to say- I guess I wanted to say that when you were missing I thought a lot about how we were as girls. I hope you can forgive me.”

 

“We were children,” said Arya. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

 

They walked upstairs, Sansa holding a kerosene lamp in front of her. “We’re in here,” said, pointing down the left side of the hallway. “These rooms aren’t being used,” she said, gesturing to the opposite end of the hall. “Jon and Ygritte’s rooms are downstairs off the parlor.”

 

Arya nodded. “Thank you, Sansa,” she said, and then she walked down the dark hallway as silently and confidently as though she’d been moving through these rooms all her life. 

 

Sandor was sitting on the edge of their bed- their beautiful, wonderful bed- when she came in. She undressed and slipped between the sheets, and within a minute Sandor wrapped himself around her. His palm came to rest low on her belly, over the spt that was just beginning to swell, before moving to tug Sansa more firmly against him. 

 

“How are you?” he asked, and she wasn’t sure if she meant about Arya or the baby. 

 

“Happy she’s okay,” said Sansa. “I’m glad she survived, glad she came home. I just don’t know why she didn’t earlier, I don’t know what she’s thinking about everything. This is her home too, but…” 

 

Sandor kissed the back of Sansa’s neck. “I know. Get some sleep.”

~~~

Sandor was gone when Sansa woke up- everyone was gone when Sansa woke up. She’d taken to napping when she could, and sometimes when she couldn’t. One day Ygritte had found her sitting on the step into the tack room fast asleep. She’d missed her nap yesterday, and that thought alone made her feel like a child. 

 

She poured herself a cup of coffee and went out onto the porch to see what was going on. Hands milled around near the barn, some on horses, some leaning or sitting on the fence. A group of ladies had set up a three-sided shelter next to the house, and from that shelter came the smell of porridge and coffee. Sansa wandered to it and discovered Alys Karstark, Ruth Umber, and a half dozen other women gathered around a massive cookpot of porridge. Ygritte was among them, and she came to briefly squeeze Sansa’s hand in greeting. 

 

“Eat,” said Alys, pointing to a pile of wooden bowls. 

 

Sansa ladled out a serving of porridge and sat down to eat. She wished she had butter and honey (she’d never outgrown her sweet tooth) but this would do. 

 

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Sansa asked Ygritte. 

 

Ruth answered for her. “Because a breeding woman needs to ask for help once in awhile. You need rest, you and that babe.”

 

“Like you did when you were with child?” asked Sansa, suddenly sick of feeling like a coddled child. 

 

“Aye, I did,” Ruth shot back. “No one here is judging you, Sansa. Enjoy having a meal cooked for you.” Ruth smiled at Sansa, and Sansa ate the rest of her breakfast quietly. 

 

The cattle culling seemed well underway. Small groups of cattle were being herded in the directions of the neighboring homesteads. The hands would come back, and then return for another group of cattle. Calves still with their mothers would be sent with her, and the weanlings would be divvied up between the farms. 

 

When the sun was high Sansa helped to serve biscuits and stewed beans to the men. The came in ones and twos and threes, most tipping their hats politely to the group of women. 

 

Occasionally Sansa would see flashes of Arya’s grey through the milling sea of cattle. Sandor and Jon were working the shoot; the narrow wooden aisle through which cows could be sorted into different groups. 

 

Sansa’s first clue that something was wrong was the rumble- it wasn’t the ground-shaking roar of a true stampede, but it was still an ominous rumble of hooves. 

 

A group of about fifteen cattle had broken loose from the main herd and were running away from the men. A little boy was playing by the stream while a group of larger children laughed and squealed and ran around a little ways away. When the older children saw the cows coming they screamed and tore out of the way. That left the little toddler playing in the dirt on his own. 

 

One woman screamed, but everything had slowed down to the sound of hooves and the pumping of the women’s heartbeats. 

 

A grey horse tore around the group of cattle, the rider bent low over the horse’s neck. They charged towards the child, and some of the women sobbed because it wasn’t possible. The rider couldn’t get the boy and make it out of the way in time. 

 

The horse was still accelerating, foam flecking it’s neck. In a fluid movement the rider seemed to slide out of the saddle without leaving the horse. Arya was holding herself on the horse with one knee hooked over the mid-line of the saddle. He arms were outstretched and then in a rush of hooves and dust she had the child in her arms, she’d righted them in the saddle, and then in a long, suspended moment Arya, her horse, and the child all soared across the stream.

 

When Arya landed it broke the spell that had fallen over the watchers. Ranch hands thundered towards the cattle, and all of the women sprinted down the hill towards Arya. 

 

The mother of the little boy- one of the Glover daughters- was the first down the hill. She waded through the stream, her skirts billowing around her legs, and sunk to the ground weeping when Arya passed her the child. 

 

The story of Arya and Nymeria’s victory that day would pass into northern legend. Little girls would routinely name their first ponies Nymeria and dream of the adventures they would have. Cattlemen would always allow her to join in their races, and Arya earned a reputation as a one of the most respected horse trainers in the north.

 

That afternoon no one knew that the story would be passed from mouth to mouth for years to come. Sansa just knew that she wept into her sister’s hair when Arya dismounted. That was also the first  _ and last  _ day that people commented on Arya’s garb. The women had whispered about the strange girl who rode astride in men’s garb, but that would happen no more. 

 

When Arya and Sansa were given a moment to themselves Arya didn’t apologize for scaring Sansa, she didn’t ask if the boy was alright. Instead Arya grinned up at Sansa and said, “I told you I could handle some fucking cows.”

 

Sansa laughed through her tears. Sandor’s first question, once he’d seen for himself that everyone was still in one piece, was to ask if Nymeria could be bred to Reaper in the spring. Sansa laughed again; she laughed and she realized that  _ this  _ was her life now, that  _ this  _ was her family, and she started to cry all over again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... would you all read a story about Arya set in this universe? About her being disguised as a man and being a message runner in the war? I started to write that story, got about 13k words in, and then gave up because I didn't think anyone would read it. 
> 
> Thank you all for getting here with me! I cannot tell you how much I've appreciated having you all along for the ride. Thank you to everyone who has given me encouragement along the way. The final bit (which is CLEAN ::gasp::) will be posted Christmas Eve. You can read it while avoiding your gradparents/crazy uncle/whomever still thinks it's the 1950s.   
>  I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!  
> <3 Chris


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home.

Once again, life in Winterfell expanded and grew into a new normal. Preserves were jarred, hay was stored, and the days grew shorter and shorter. 

 

Not all of the changes were painless. Sansa and Arya loved each other fiercely and loyally, but they still loved each other as sisters with disparate personalities. Sansa was offended by Arya’s habit of either ignoring her or treating the older woman as a child. Arya was offended by Sansa’s hovering. Ygritte had to break up an argument in which Arya called Sansa a managing shrew and Sansa called Arya a dirty termagant. 

 

Ygritte had been quiet since Arya’s return. She still hovered around Sansa, but all the little touches and kisses had stopped. 

 

Finally Sansa brought it up while they boiled laundry out in the yard. Sansa was wrapped in Sandor’s old coat (she’d started on new clothes for all of them, but she was only one woman and the day was only so long) and Ygritte was back in the cloak she’d had from her trapping days. 

 

They’d been sitting quietly, looking into the fire and breathing in the cool air when Sansa had leaned towards Ygritte and lightly kissed her. 

 

“What are you up to, Sansa?” Ygritte whispered only a few inches from Sansa’s own lips.

 

“I’ve missed you, I’ve missed this. I didn’t know if you were ashamed, or…? She let the sentence trail off. 

 

“No, love. I thought that you would be, that perhaps with your sister home you wouldn’t wish to continue.”

 

“I need you,” said Sansa, passionate now. “I won’t get through this without you”- she tugged Ygritte’s hand to the firm swell of her belly- “I miss your hugs and kisses. I liked being petted.” That last admission was a whisper. 

 

Ygritte caressed Sansa’s belly before moving to cup the other woman’s cheek. “I didn’t know, love. I was trying to give you space.”

 

Sansa leaned into the shorter woman, letting her head rest against Ygritte’s shoulder. “I realized recently that this is  _ it.  _ This is the happy ending, and it will keep going on and changing and growing. Like me,” she laughed, rubbing a hand over her active baby. 

 

“Anyway, I don’t want to go through that without you. I love Arya, she’s my sister, but you… you’re a soul-sister. Or something.” Sansa was embarrassed now- in the last few weeks her emotions had become more and more intense. 

 

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but it must have been a wonderful thing,” Ygritte said. They sat and watched steam curl into the air with their fingers intertwined. 

~~~

The final member of their family arrived at the same time as winter’s first snow. Sansa and Arya saw him first- though he was certainly hard to miss. He came riding down the slope into Winterfell leading four other horses. 

 

Arya set down her coffee and stood to get a better look at the newcomer. Sansa stood too, though it was a slower motion than it had once been. Her belly was unmistakeable now, a curve that started beneath her breasts and continued down in a drape of green flannel. Out of necessity her new dress and coat had been completed first. 

 

Arya went down the porch steps and watched as the man stopped the horses at the bottom of the hill. 

 

“I’ve been chasing you for weeks,” the man called. 

 

Arya ran down the hill and launched herself up into the man’s lap. Sansa wasn’t sure how she’d done it- Sansa had seen Arya mount from a standing position without stirrups, but this was something different and more fluid. 

 

“I hate you,” Sansa heard Arya mumbled. “Thank you for finding me.”

 

One more time the residents of Winterfell went through a dance of introductions. 

 

“I’m Gendry,” said the man. “I’m the one who brought Sandor his discharge letter in Atlanta, and I’m going to marry Arya even if I have to take her to the church in a bag.” He grinned as he said this, two dimples flashing under warm brown eyes, and Sansa decided that she liked him. 

 

Sandor and Jon strolled up behind Sansa and Ygritte, and Sandor eyed the horses. “Bronn sent you?” he asked. 

 

“I sent myself, but I brought these horses from Bronn,” said Gendry. “I bumped into him in northern Virginia. I said I was going to find Arya Stark, and Bronn told me you were going to marry her sister, and since that was just so convenient for him, he’d send me along with the horses you bought.”

 

The group turned to look over the horses stamping and shifting behind Gendry. They  _ were _ absolutely beautiful. 

 

“I towed these horses three thousand miles. I’m claiming my reward.” Gendry grinned and bent Arya over, ignoring her fists smacking at his shoulders, kissing her deeply. Ygritte whistled, Sansa laughed, and Sandor rolled his eyes. 

 

In the end Gendry brought more to Winterfell than horses and a wedding ring for Arya. He also brought news of the war. 

 

“I don’t know what Arya told you,” he said that night over dinner. “But Cersei was arrested the day before Atlanta fell. That’s why the two of us were there,” he said, smacking Arya’s hand as she reached to take the slice of bread from his plate. 

 

“She’s since been implicated in a plot to assassinate the president.”

 

The entire table stopped moving. Gendry nodded and continued his story. “She was convicted just before I left Virginia. I’ve got a paper in my bag, I brought it for you to read: Cersei was hung three weeks ago. The first woman to be executed in the States.”

 

There was a long moment of silence. Sansa had expected to feel elated at this news, she expected to feel vindication and closure and ...joy. Instead she felt exactly like she did before. “Good,” she finally said. “She earned it.”

 

It was true. Cersei had earned death, she’d earned it many times over, but it didn’t bother Sansa that she hadn’t been there to see it. Sansa was home.

 

Gendry arrived in Winterfell in the last week of November. He and Arya were married in the little white Winter Town church the following Sunday, on December 1st.

 

Sansa liked living with the other couples. She got to snuggle Ygritte by the fire (After a few strange looks from Arya and Gendry it had just become ‘normal’ once more) and there was always someone to talk to and something to do. 

 

The flurry to prepare for winter was over- winter came to the north early- and now the family was able to relax and enjoy the long, dark nights laughing together around the fire. 

 

Two weeks before Christmas Sandor and Gendry dragged a beautiful pine out of the woods. They strung it with popcorn and little ruched scraps of cloth and flowers that had been dried from the summer. Mistletoe seemed to be hung in every doorway of the house, and even Sandor got into the spirit, bussing Arya and Ygritte on the cheek when they caught him under the little green sprigs. 

 

Christmas Eve soon arrived- Sansa’s favorite day of the year. She loved the anticipation, the simmering joy, the crackle of the fire and the bliss of a hot drink next to a cold, snowy window. She was deep in the sofa Sandor and Jon had brought home as their Christmas present to the family. It was padded and upholstered in a soft blue velvet. It was luxury itself, and was the only place Sansa could seem to relax the ache in her back. Ygritte was protective of the seat, and would fiercely shoo away anyone who carried food or coffee by it. 

 

Ygritte came out from the kitchen and stood before Sansa. “Up you get, beautiful,” she said, taking Sansa’s hands and tugging the woman out of her seat. 

 

“Why?” Sansa griped, following Ygritte back into the kitchen. “Everything in here is clean.”

 

“And don’t you want to be?” asked Ygritte. The tub was full of steaming water, and Sansa almost cried at the sight. 

 

She was shy to undress in front of her lover. Sandor had seen her naked and had made his approval of her growing form very clear. He would kiss along her belly before licking lower and lower, taking his time to draw Sansa’s orgams out of her. She was so much more sensitive, the skin on her breasts and belly and cunny felt every smallest touch. 

 

Ygritte, though, hadn’t seen Sansa naked in weeks, and Sansa was shy of it. 

 

Ygritte kissed Sansa lightly. “You’re perfect,” she said. “Strong and full of life. You’re doing something no man can do. They should worship  _ us,  _ they should see us for the goddesses we are.” This was said to Sansa as Ygritte quickly undressed the other woman. 

 

“Oh, Sansa,” Ygritte whispered when Sansa stood before her unclothed. Ygritte ran her hands across Sansa’s collarbones to her swollen breasts, the tips of her fingers just lightly tracing the nipple, before her palms swept down to stroke and weigh Sansa’s swollen stomach. 

 

Sansa couldn’t doubt the look she saw in Ygritte’s eyes. She sighed as she sank into the water, the heat relaxing muscles that had been drawn tight for months. Ygritte kissed her on her cheek, and then Sansa heard Sandor’s heavier footsteps come into the room. 

 

She opened her eyes (when had she closed them?) to see Sandor crouched next to the tub. He took a piece of flannel, worked it into a lather, and ran it over Sansa’s shoulders and neck.

 

“I wish we could go to the hotsprings,” he said. “But this was the next best I could do.”

 

Sansa smiled at him. She’d become a veritable watering-pot since she’d become pregnant, and she just  _ would not  _ cry now. “It’s perfect,” she whispered. 

 

“I never thought we’d get here,” he said as he ran the cloth over her breasts and stomach. “When I found you watching the house burn. I never thought we’d get here, that I’d get here.”

 

Sansa dunked her hair and relaxed as Sandor moved to wash it. “I always thought I’d die on some battlefield, that that would be it. Then we went went on a harebrained journey to kill Cersei I became pretty damn sure of it.”

 

Sandor’s fingers in her hair felt  _ so good,  _ but his words were raising the little hairs all over her body. 

 

“Somewhere along the way, though, I began to hope and think that maybe I could make it off the battlefield. Maybe there was more.” 

 

Sansa felt his lips press against her damp shoulder. “You’ve given me that, Sansa. More than I ever deserved. I love you, and I am so damn thankful for you everyday. Sometimes I still wake up and half-expect to be living in a barracks full of stinking fucking men, but I wake up next to you, and I am the luckiest fucking man alive.”

 

Sansa was crying now, damn him, and she rubbed the tears away when Sandor poured a bucket of warm water over her head to rinse. 

 

“That’s how I feel,” she whispered to him as he wrapped a towel around her. “I never thought I’d want a man after Ramsay. I didn’t think I had a family, I didn’t think I’d last that winter. But here we are.” 

 

She pressed herself against her husband. “I’m so happy it scares me. I have a home and a family and I have your babe inside me. How did this happen?”

 

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure this is why people suspect that there is a god,” said Sandor, helping Sansa into her nightrobe and dressing gown. 

 

Ygritte reappeared with her own robe clutched to her chest. “Did you think you were the only one getting a bath tonight, sweet?” she asked, kissing Sansa lightly. 

 

Sansa moved with Sandor into the parlor. The tree stood green and beautiful in the corner. More ornaments would be added to it over the years as children and memories were added to the family. A few packages in brown paper were stuffed into the branches of the tree. 

 

The fire roared in the huge stone fireplace. Sandor had built a heavy grate in front of it, so the fire could be built up high with no worry of rolling logs. Arya and Gendry were curled together on the rag rug by the hearth, whispering and smiling. The baby kicked in Sansa’s womb as Sandor tugged her into his lap. Ygritte was singing to herself while she was about her bath, and Sansa could hear the gentle words of  _ Silent Night.  _ She leaned her head into the crook of Sandor’s shoulder and closed her eyes. 

 

Sansa was home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! Thank you for the support and love. I love this little family. Merry Christmas to you, and sincerely: thank you all. 
> 
> Best!  
> Chris


End file.
